BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Olympics chief Jacques Rogge on Wednesday called for Israel to give more help to Palestinian athletes in his “message of peace” during a major tour of the region.

“Please make the life of the Palestinian athletes easier… that is definitely the main message that I will convey later this afternoon and tomorrow,” the International Olympics Committee (IOC) President told Reuters in an interview.

Rogge told his Palestinian hosts he would ask Israel to ease travel restrictions for Palestinian athletes and to facilitate a greater flow of sporting goods and equipment into the Palestinian territories.

Rogge said he planned to invite the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian committees to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland shortly to discuss co-operation between the two bodies.

“The message will be peace, make it more easy,” he said.

In the last few years, Palestinian soccer players were denied freedom to travel by the Israeli authorities — mainly out of the Gaza Strip — to join the national team for World Cup qualifiers and international friendlies.

Additionally, Palestinian athletes had difficulties with travel for training prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Olympics chief Jacques Rogge on Wednesday called for Israel to give more help to Palestinian athletes in his “message of peace” during a major tour of the region.

“Please make the life of the Palestinian athletes easier… that is definitely the main message that I will convey later this afternoon and tomorrow,” the International Olympics Committee (IOC) President told Reuters in an interview.

Rogge told his Palestinian hosts he would ask Israel to ease travel restrictions for Palestinian athletes and to facilitate a greater flow of sporting goods and equipment into the Palestinian territories.

Rogge said he planned to invite the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian committees to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland shortly to discuss co-operation between the two bodies.

“The message will be peace, make it more easy,” he said.

In the last few years, Palestinian soccer players were denied freedom to travel by the Israeli authorities — mainly out of the Gaza Strip — to join the national team for World Cup qualifiers and international friendlies.

Additionally, Palestinian athletes had difficulties with travel for training prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Olympics chief Jacques Rogge Wednesday called for Israel to give more help to Palestinian athletes in his “message of peace” during a major tour of the region.

“Please make the life of the Palestinian athletes easier… that is definitely the main message that I will convey later this afternoon and tomorrow,” the International Olympics Committee (IOC) President told Reuters in an interview.

Rogge told his Palestinian hosts he would ask Israel to ease travel restrictions for Palestinian athletes and to facilitate a greater flow of sporting goods and equipment into the Palestinian territories.

Rogge said he planned to invite the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian committees to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland shortly to discuss co-operation between the two bodies.

“The message will be peace, make it more easy,” he said.

In the last few years, Palestinian soccer players were denied freedom to travel by the Israeli authorities — mainly out of the Gaza Strip — to join the national team for World Cup qualifiers and international friendlies.

Additionally, Palestinian athletes had difficulties with travel for training prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

JERUSALEM, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Chelsea midfielder Yossi Benayoun will miss Israel’s Euro 2012 qualifiers against Croatia and Greece and faces months on the sidelines after suffering an Achilles tendon injury, the Israeli FA said on Wednesday.

An MRI scan carried out after his arrival in Israel on Tuesday, when he told national team staff of the pain he was experiencing, revealed the true extent of the injury which was originally thought to be just a calf muscle injury.

“He arrived from Chelsea on Tuesday morning complaining of pains, the team doctor sent him for a scan and it revealed a significant tear. He did not train while he was here,” national team spokesman Gil Levanoni said.

Benayoun’s injury was described as a “hefty blow to the national team … he could be sidelined for months” on the Israel Football Association website (football.org.il/).

Benayoun, 30, a vital component in Israel coach Luis Fernandez’s plans, was already a doubt for the games against Croatia in Tel Aviv on Saturday and Greece in Athens next Tuesday because of what was thought to be a calf injury.

Benayoun suffered the injury in Chelsea’s 4-3 League Cup defeat by Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge on Sept. 22.

“I arrived with hope of helping the national team but unfortunately this is not a simple injury… an additional test will reveal what needs to be done,” Benayoun was quoted as saying on the IFA website.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli orchestra is set to become the first ensemble from the Jewish state to play a German festival associated with Richard Wagner, a composer admired by Adolf Hitler and whose music has been controversial in Israel.

The Israel Chamber Orchestra will perform in July in the northern Bavarian town of Bayreuth where Wagner lived the latter part of his life until his death in 1883. He built an opera house there, designed to host his own expansive works.

Israeli orchestras rarely play Wagner’s music, citing the feelings of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, and state-owned media in Israel largely keeps his work off the air.

Holocaust survivors say Jews murdered at Nazi death camps were sent to the gas chambers while Wagner’s music played in the background and inmate orchestras were forced to perform his music.

Although Wagner, who penned anti-Semitic texts, died half a century before Hitler came to power, the Nazi dictator was a fervent admirer.

Attempts by some musicians in Israel to perform Wagner’s music have caused audience members to walk out in protest and have triggered public debate.

The annual Bayreuth Festival which centers around Wagner’s monumental operas is one of the biggest musical events on the calendar and organizers say tickets are sold out years ahead.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Embattled Olympic Lyon coach Claude Puel gained a welcome if all too fleeting respite from his domestic woes on Wednesday with his team’s 3-1 win over Hapoel Tel Aviv in Champions League Group B.

Puel, who is under fire for his side’s poor start to their Ligue 1 campaign, had already turned his attention to a demanding match against Nancy as he appraised his team’s performance.

“It is good to have picked up six points from two Champions League matches but we do differentiate between the Champions League and the domestic league,” he told a news conference.

“The Champions League is special but we still have a very difficult domestic fixture at the weekend against Nancy.”

Brazilian midfielder Michel Bastos, who hit the only goal in Lyon’s win over Schalke in their opening game, struck with a penalty after seven minutes after Hapoel captain Walid Badier brought down Jimmy Briand.

Lyon doubled their lead in the 36th minute when Bastos blasted in from 25 metres following a corner.

Hapoel, making their home debut in the competition at their compact Bloomfield Stadium, got one back through goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama’s 79th-minute penalty before substitute Miralem Pjanic sealed Lyon’s win in stoppage time.

TEL AVIV, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Brazilian midfielder Michel Bastos again proved Olympique Lyon’s matchwinner with a first-half double in a 3-1 win over Hapoel Tel Aviv in Champions League Group B on Wednesday.

Bastos, who hit the only goal in Lyon’s win over Schalke in their opening game, struck with a penalty after seven minutes after Hapoel captain Walid Badier brought down Jimmy Briand.

Lyon doubled their lead in the 36th minute when Bastos blasted in from 25 metres following a corner.

Hapoel, making their home debut in the competition at their compact Bloomfield Stadium, got one back through goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama’s 79th-minute penalty before substitute Miralem Pjanic sealed Lyon’s win in stoppage time.

Victory will ease some of the pressure on Lyon coach Claude Puel, under-fire for his side’s poor start to their Ligue 1 campaign.

The technical skills of Hapoel’s players were rarely in evidence as Lyon’s speed in attack and assuredness in defence did not allow the hosts to take advantage throughout the match, played on a hot, humid Tel Aviv night.

Bastos’s penalty set the tone for Lyon’s dominance throughout the first half when they appeared to throw their entire team forward and then quickly hurry back to close down the defence allowing Hapoel no leeway.

GEVA BINYAMIN, West Bank (Reuters) – Mechanical diggers tore into the rocky ground at a Jewish settlement on Tuesday where mostly Palestinian crew prepared foundations for 24 homes after Israel’s partial building freeze ended.

“We got to work this morning, we are just doing our job,” said the site’s foreman, a Palestinian who declined to give his name.

Low-rise apartments were being built behind a steel safety wall at Geva Binyamin, a settlement of 1,300 families that sits on a hilltop overlooking nearby Palestinian villages and other Israeli enclaves in the occupied West Bank.

Work got under way after Israel’s limited moratorium on housing starts in West Bank settlements expired on Monday. Palestinian leaders have threatened to quit U.S.-brokered peace talks unless a freeze is reinstated.

Palestinians regard the enclaves as hated symbols of Israeli occupation that could deny them a viable state. But for thousands of Palestinian workers, settlements also mean food on the table.

Palestinian officials say some 25,000 Palestinians are employed in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured from Jordan in a 1967 war.

Fewer than a dozen builders and surveyors, most of them Palestinians, were at work at Geva Binyamin, 12 km (eight miles) north of Jerusalem, preparing the plot for the foundations of the complex that will join other red-roofed apartment buildings lining the street.

TEL AVIV, Sept 2 (Reuters) – Captain Yossi Benayoun scored a hat-trick to lead Israel to a 3-1 win over Malta in their opening Euro 2012 Group F qualifier on Thursday.

Benayoun struck in the seventh minute with a low shot from close range, converted a penalty in the 64th and finished off with a header 15 minutes from time.

Malta’s Jamie Pace headed an equaliser in the 38th minute to send the teams in level at halftime but the visitors found their hosts too aggressive and skilful throughout the match.

The other opening Group F fixtures will be played on Friday when Latvia host Croatia and Greece are at home to Georgia.

Benayoun set the tone for a new-look Israel side under the guidance of French coach Luis Fernandez and he also had an effort disallowed.

Malta never looked like threatening Israel’s dominance at their home bastion where they rarely lose and had to rely on a handful of counterattacking moves either side of halftime when they were at their most dangerous.

The hot and humid conditions helped neither team but Fernandez insisted that Israel had faced tough opposition.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is in talks to build the wings for about a quarter of the United States’s new F-35 stealth fighter aircraft, an Israeli official said on Monday.

Lockheed Martin currently plans to build some 3,200 F-35s costing about $96 million each.

An Israeli official who declined to be named said state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries would build the wings.

“We are in advanced talks for the IAI to produce around 800 sets of wings,” he told Reuters.

Lockheed Martin declined to comment on the details of a possible deal involving the aircraft, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Earlier this month Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved in principle the purchase of 20 of the radar-evading fighters, in a deal worth $2.75 billion.

Israeli and U.S. officials expect final approval of that deal by the end of September. The planes would be delivered in 2015-2017. The cost of the purchase would be covered by an annual U.S. defense grant of $3 billion.