Israel has stepped up its attempts to stop an aid ship breaking its blockade of Gaza, sending a letter to the UN and engaging Greece and Moldova in talks.

The Israeli Security Cabinet has decided to relax import rules for humanitarian goods and to ease much of its land blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Hey there all you starry eyed humanitarians, do gooders, peace activists, liberal religious, anti Israel, anti Jewish haters and other useful idiots! Do you want to help a small beleaguered minority group of Muslims in the Mideast fighting for a state of its own against a larger, …

The SA government summoned the Israeli ambassador to demand the release of a South African journalist held after a raid on a ship in Israel on Monday.South Africa's deputy minister of international relations, Sue van der Merwe, summoned Israeli ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg to register the government's "strongest possible protest" to the Israeli government, after an attack on the ship, the Mavi Marmara on Monday morning.