JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israelis reacted coolly on Friday to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s quest for statehood recognition, and some said his impassioned speech at the United Nations had only succeeded in harming the chances of peace.

Telling the U.N. General Assembly he wanted peaceful relations with Israel, Abbas painted a bleak picture of life for ordinary Palestinians under occupation.

Israeli analysts said his words would not create an environment of trust conducive to fruitful negotiations.

“He blamed Israel for all the Palestinian problems and it showed that bilateral talks now cannot be resumed,” said Uzi Rabi, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a Middle East analyst.

Abbas has said he has beaten a unilateral path to the United Nations following two decades of failed peace talks brokered by Washington, which is increasingly seen by Palestinians as overwhelmingly pro-Israeli.

The United States has made clear it will veto any Palestinian statehood resolution in the Security Council and Israeli analysts have said that independence can come only through difficult direct negotiations, not U.N. manoeuvres.

“This was a PR exercise which was all very nice. (Abbas) will get a few days of applause, but eventually, he will have to negotiate with us,” said Alan Baker, an Israeli former peace negotiator and ex-ambassador.

TEL AVIV, Sept 2 (Reuters) – A second-half goal by Sotiris Ninis helped Greece strengthen their position at the top of Euro 2012 Group F qualifying with a 1-0 victory in Israel on Friday.

Midfielder Ninis struck on the hour with a low shot from outside the area and the visitors then put all their men behind the ball for the last 30 minutes to keep the home team out.

“At halftime I told our players we had to maintain a strong defence but also do a little bit more in attack,” Greece’s Portuguese coach Fernando Santos told reporters.

“We did a very good job in the second half and our team had chances to score.”

A dull encounter played in hot and humid conditions in mid-afternoon was more notable for the defensive efforts of both sides, with no more than a handful of shots on target at either end.

Greece top the group with 17 points from seven matches. Croatia, who visit Malta later, are second with 13 points from six games and Israel have 13 from eight.

Israel still retain outside hopes of qualifying for a major tournament for the first time since the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Tuesday it had sent two extra warships to patrol the Red Sea but it downplayed reports that they were connected to an Egyptian sweep of the Sinai peninsula for militants.

A military official said the deployment was routine but declined to say what operational duties the ships were performing.

“I can confirm that there are two naval craft in the Red Sea. This is not unusual,” the official told Reuters.

Homefront Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said Israeli security forces were on very high alert in the country’s south and that Egyptian troops were acting against gunmen in the Sinai.

“There is a very specific alert that an Islamic Jihad organisation wants to carry out an attack on the Egyptian border and we are taking this alert very seriously. It should be emphasised that the Egyptians are also acting,” he said.

Brent crude prices extended gains after the reports came out, adding around $1 to trade up $2.09 at $114.00 by 1600 GMT (5 p.m. British time).

Militants killed eight Israelis in a cross-border attack on August 18 that Israel said had come from the Gaza Strip through Sinai. Five Egyptian security men were also killed when Israeli forces pursued some of the militants who had fled to Sinai.

ASHKELON, Israel (Reuters) – Israeli officials on Monday praised the effectiveness of the U.S.-funded Iron Dome anti-rocket defence system, despite its failure to shoot down a rocket fired from Gaza that killed a man in a residential area.

A senior commander said Iron Dome interceptors had shot down 20 incoming projectiles fired by Gaza militants in five days of cross-border violence and said that statistically the fact that one rocket got through did not mean the system had failed.

Colonel Zvika Haimovitch, an air force officer in charge of Israel’s active air defence units, said that was a very high rate of success but no system could guarantee total protection.

The Iron Dome battery placed to protect the southern city of Beersheba intercepted four of five rockets fired in one barrage but failed to stop the one that got through and killed the man and wounded several other people when it landed near a house.

Iron Dome’s makers claim it has a “very high percent success rate” and the published figures for successful intercepts suggest a 93.3 percent kill rate.

“It does not matter how many batteries or components I put on the ground, I can never promise 100 percent success,” Haimovitch said.

Iron Dome’s makers claim it has a “very high percent success rate” and the published figures for successful intercepts suggest a 93.3 percent kill rate.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian militants fired at least 12 rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, drawing an Israeli threat to step up attacks in the Gaza Strip in a three-day-old surge of cross-border violence.

“The Israel Defence Forces will not hesitate to widen its actions and to respond with as much force as is needed,” Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, the military’s chief spokesman, said on Israel Radio, a day after an Israeli was killed in a rocket strike on the southern city of Beersheba.

The bloodshed began on Thursday, when gunmen whom Israel said came from the Gaza Strip and crossed into its territory near the Red Sea resort of Eilat via Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, killed eight people in attacks on a desert road.

Five Egyptian security personnel and seven gunmen were also killed in that day’s violence.

Cairo said on Saturday it would recall its ambassador to Tel Aviv over the killing of its men, but welcomed Israel’s promise of a joint investigation.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel regretted the deaths, which have sparked the most serious crisis in ties with Egypt since longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in February. Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979.

Israel has carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip since Thursday that medical officials said have killed least 15 people, among them gunmen and five civilians. Israel said more than 100 rockets have been fired from the Hamas Islamist-controlled enclave at its southern towns and villages.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel announced Monday approval for building 277 homes in a West Bank settlement, despite U.S. and international pressure to curb expansion on occupied land and as Palestinians prepare for a statehood bid at the United Nations.

Four days after a final go-ahead for a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem drew U.S. and European condemnation, Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s office said he had signed off on new housing in the major settlement of Ariel.

Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman told Reuters the project was the largest approved by the government in the settlement for years.

“No more than 50 apartments have been built here in the past seven years,” Nachman said.

Ariel, which has some 18,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest settlements Israel has built in the West Bank, territory captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want back along with the Gaza Strip for a future state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has named Ariel as one of the large settlements that Israel intends to keep in any peace deal with the Palestinians.

U.S.-brokered peace talks have been frozen since the Palestinians walked out in September over Israeli settlement building.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel announced Monday approval for building 277 homes in a West Bank settlement, despite U.S. and international pressure to curb expansion on occupied land and as Palestinians prepare for a statehood bid at the United Nations.

Four days after a final go-ahead for a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem drew U.S. and European condemnation, Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s office said he had signed off on new housing in the major settlement of Ariel.

Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman told Reuters the project was the largest approved by the government in the settlement for years.

“No more than 50 apartments have been built here in the past seven years,” Nachman said.

Ariel, which has some 18,000 inhabitants, is one of the largest settlements Israel has built in the West Bank, territory captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want back along with the Gaza Strip for a future state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has named Ariel as one of the large settlements that Israel intends to keep in any peace deal with the Palestinians.

U.S.-brokered peace talks have been frozen since the Palestinians walked out in September over Israeli settlement building.

JERUSALEM, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Israeli Premier League club Hapoel Petah Tikva could earn a reprieve from relegation despite missing two deadlines to present a viable budget, the Israel Football Association said on Thursday.

Petah Tikva were demoted after failing to raise the mandatory minimum 11.4 million shekels ($3.3 million) by last week’s deadline and despite missing an extension on Tuesday when they said they did not have all the money.

That failure initiated a move by the Israeli FA to promote Hapoel Kfar Sava in place of Petah Tikva, who a day later declared they had made up the shortfall and would be able to present a viable budget.

The move prompted the FA’s top court to agree to discuss the matter and make a final ruling on Sunday.

In a brief statement on Thursday, the Israeli FA said: “The supreme tribunal has decided that the hearing in the matter of Hapoel Petah Tikva and Hapoel Kfar Sava will take place this coming Sunday.”

Petah Tikva finished third from bottom last season and won a relegation playoff against Kfar Sava who finished third from top in the second division.

As well as relegation, Petah Tikva were handed a nine-point deduction from the start of the new season.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli navy on Tuesday seized a French yacht carrying pro-Palestinian activists intending to sail to the blockaded Gaza Strip and forced it to go to Israel’s Ashdod port, a military spokeswoman said.

There were no reports of violence as the marines boarded the “Dignite-AlKarama” yacht in the eastern Mediterranean, she said.

“I can confirm that the yacht has been boarded and that everything went smoothly, there were no casualties,” the spokeswoman said.

Chief military spokesman Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai said the passengers were transferred from the small yacht to one of the warships and were sailing to Ashdod.

The 17-passenger yacht had declared an Egyptian port as its destination when it left Greek waters on Sunday but then said it was changing course toward the Palestinian enclave and hoped to arrive by Tuesday afternoon.

It had planned to sail to Hamas-ruled Gaza as part of a flotilla carrying activists and aid, but other vessels were prevented from sailing after docking in Greece. Activists accused the Greek government of intervening on Israel’s side.

“In accordance with government directives, after all diplomatic channels had been exhausted and continuous calls to the vessel had been ignored, IDF (marines) boarded the Al-Karame in an effort to stop it from breaking the maritime security blockade on the Gaza Strip,” a military statement said.