JERUSALEM (AFP) ? Israel battened down the hatches at its main airport on Thursday, awaiting hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists as Greece blocked the last boat in a scuppered campaign to ship aid to the Gaza Strip.
Organisers of the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign, which some have called the "flytilla," say the 600 or so activists -- more than half French -- are flying in on Friday to visit Palestinian families and have "totally peaceful intentions."
"The organisers did not come with any intention of demonstrating at the airport or doing anything like that," Palestinian-American professor Mazin Qumsiyeh told public radio, adding that he expected between 600 and 800 activists.
"Israeli authorities made the mistake of mobilising security on people who are obviously not a security threat," he said.
"We expect all the people who respond by coming, by being our guests in Palestine, to sign a paper in which they commit to non-violence."
Israel nevertheless appeared to be gearing up for a confrontation, with hundreds of police at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.
"There is a large police presence in and around the airport to prevent any disturbances," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
The radio said the authorities had sent foreign airlines the names of 329 passengers who had booked flights to Israel but would not be allowed in.
Foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor confirmed that such a list had been made available to carriers, who are liable to repatriate at their own expense passengers refused entry at their destination.
"Generally, whenever somebody is listed as to be refused entry their names go into a computer programme to which airlines have access, as a matter of routine," he told AFP.
"In this specific case they sent a concentrated list of several names...a number of names relevant to this case, to the airlines.
Eight pro-Palestinian activists were turned back in Paris as they tried to take a flight to Tel Aviv, an airport source said. They had been due to board a Hungarian airline Malev flight via Budapest.
Police spokesman Rosenfeld said officers were deployed throughout Ben Gurion's main Terminal 3 as well as around the older Terminal 1 used for charter flights.
Media reports suggested that all flights from Europe would be directed to a separate terminal and their passengers carefully screened.
Organisers of the 10-ship aid flotilla which activists were hoping to sail to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade said the lone boat to leave a Greek port was caught on Thursday.
"The Dignite/Al Karama was taken to Sitia in Crete by the Greek coast guard after being stopped in a nearby port while it was refuelling," Claude Leostic told AFP, saying the authorities were "stopping the boat from setting sail for various administrative reasons."
The French yacht had sailed from a Greek port on Tuesday.
Eight other boats containing hundreds of international activists are currently being blocked from leaving Greek ports, while an Irish vessel which organisers say was sabotaged is being repaired in Turkey.
The flotilla had been due to sail last week but was hit by administrative obstacles organisers blamed on political pressure from Israel.
Athens says it imposed the ban for the "safety" of the activists in the wake of last year's bloody showdown when Israeli commandos raided a six-ship flotilla in a confrontation that left nine Turkish activists dead.
Bestselling author Henning Mankell, who was taking part in the new flotilla, told reporters after arriving home that Greece "has given in to Israeli threats, to American threats and didn't let us leave, which is of course a scandal."
A UN rapporteur Thursday slammed a highly anticipated UN report expected to endorse the legality of Israel's naval blockade of Gaza, which the Jewish state says is essential to stop arms reaching its militant Islamist Hamas rulers.
"The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof. Olivier De Schutter, has received a draft of this report and he firmly opposes its conclusions," his office said in a statement.
"According to Olivier De Schutter, the blockade and the Israeli intervention clearly violate international law and the human right to food," it added.
Meanwhile, Israel-Turkey talks meant to repair ties strained by last year's flotilla raid have collapsed, an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, after failing to produce a compromise.
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