Israel official says Israel, Turkey reach an ‘understanding’

Turkey will also expel Saleh al-Aruri, a senior member of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigade, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Israel and Turkey are planning to normalize their tense political relations.

According to the agreement reached in Switzerland, the unnamed Israeli official said, the countries will discuss the possibility of constructing a pipeline to supply Turkey with gas from Israel’s offshore fields.

A separate official could not say when the pact might be signed, but Channel 10 television said it was expected “in coming days”.

The official said Turkey would waive legal claims against Israel over the raid and that the countries would upgrade diplomatic ties by returning ambassadors.

Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara pro-Palestinian aid flotilla off the coast of Gaza in May 2010 and killed nine Turkish nationals and a Turkish-US citizen on board.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hinted that a warming of ties was on the cards, saying that an improvement in relations between the two countries would benefit the region as a whole.

Hanan Ashrawi strongly denounced Israel’s failure to prosecute the suspects behind the deliberate burning and killing of the Dawabsheh family and said, “We are not asking Israel to extra-judicially execute the suspects, to demolish their homes, to deport them, to place them under administrative detention, or to revoke their IDs. The region is in need of this”, Erdogan said. Some 17 Palestinians were arrested in night raids on Wednesday, many for alleged connections to terrorism.

A group of six civilian ships set sail for Gaza from Cyprus with the goal of breaking Israel’s blockade on the strip of Palestinian territory.

Israel apologized to Turkey for the deaths and agreed to compensate the victims’ families under a U.S.-brokered arrangement in 2013.

Turkey buys more than half of its natural gas from Russian Federation and has been looking for a new supplier since Vladimir Putin ramped up his rhetoric against Ankara, accusing Turkey of “war crimes”.