A Palestinian Christian couple from the Cremisan Valley, threatened by Israel's West Bank separation barrier's proposed route, said they will alert Pope Francis to its perils when they have lunch with him Sunday.

"We will tell the Holy Pope our concerns about Israeli threats to confiscate the whole Cremisan area and to build a wall," Juliette Abu Mohor said at 

Palestinian Roman Catholic priests urged Pope Francis Thursday to press Israel to give them freedom of movement during the pontiff's upcoming visit, particularly permission to travel to Jerusalem.

"According to the State of Israel, the illegal occupier, we do not have the right to travel to Jerusalem without permission from the Israeli army," some 20 priests of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem wrote in a letter addressed to Francis.

The European Union has banned the import of poultry and eggs from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, Israeli news website Walla reported on Thursday.

The 28-nation bloc informed the Israeli agriculture ministry that it recognized its veterinary supervision only within the Jewish state's pre-1967 borders and that settlement poultry produce therefore did not meet public health regulations for import, the website said.

Several hundred Christians from the Gaza Strip have been allowed to leave the besieged Palestinian territory to travel to the West Bank for Pope Francis's upcoming visit, officials said Thursday.

"Israel allowed around 650 Christians in Gaza to travel to the West Bank during the pope's visit" this weekend, a security official told AFP .

Palestinian Premier Rami Hamdallah is to head the consensus government to be formed under a deal with Hamas to end seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and Gaza, an official said Thursday.

"The government is nearly ready, and Rami Hamdallah will be prime minister," the official close to the reconciliation negotiations told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The General Security announced on Wednesday that Palestinians who have fled Syria to Lebanon should file their personal documents within a month.

It said that the papers should be filed at General Security stations starting Thursday.

Israeli police on Tuesday arrested four people suspected of "acts of racist vandalism" in the north of the country, a police spokesman said.

"Four people suspected of acts of racist vandalism in the town of Yokneam were arrested and questioned by the police and the Shin Bet" internal security agency, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

A top U.N. official on Tuesday called for an investigation into the deaths of two Palestinian teens fatally shot last week by Israeli border policemen in the West Bank.

The youths were shot dead as Israeli police responded to demonstrations marking the 66th anniversary of the Nakba -- or "catastrophe" -- of the Jewish state's creation.

Aid convoys from Algeria and Jordan crossed Sunday from Egypt into Israeli-blockaded Gaza  with $2.5 million (1.8 million euros) worth of supplies, the Palestinian territory's Hamas government said.

Alaa el-Batta, a government official, told a news conference at the Rafah border crossing that a 14-member Algerian delegation brought medicines and medical equipment worth $2 million for the opening of an Algerian-sponsored hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

A Palestinian refugee who escaped the ongoing civil war in Syria and took refuge in Lebanon committed suicide on Saturday in Burj al-Shamali camp in the southern city of Tyre.

"Palestinian national Z.M. Qoraishi shot himself dead on Saturday evening,” the state-run National News Agency reported.