Gaza - The Gaza Strip's power plant will shut down morning after consuming a limited shipment of fuel that was allowed into Gaza two days ago, Palestinian official said Saturday.

"The plant will close by early Sunday as the last amount of diesel ran out," said Jamal al-Derdasawi, an official at the station.

Gaza - Premier Ehud Olmert has been forced to withdraw his promise to release 250 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

According to the sources, the Palestinian Authority (PA) received a message from the caretaker Israeli government saying that "huge pressure was put on Olmert and forced him to review his promise" made to Abbas in Jerusalem last month.

Olmert faced pressure to halt the release of the prisoners until the release of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, who is presently in the hands of the Islamic Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip

Jerusalem/Ramallah/Gaza City - Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday welcomed Hillary Clinton's nomination as the next US secretary of state.

Abbas' staunch rival, the radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling Gaza, however, said Clinton would display the same pro-Israeli bias as it charged previous US secretaries of state had in the past.

"We don't count on any foreign policy of the American administration, especially when dealing with the Middle East and the Palestinian cause," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan said, adding "there is no difference between the successive administrations."

Gaza City/Tel Aviv - Israel forced a Libyan ship with humanitarian aid heading for the Gaza Strip to turn around Monday.

A spokesman for the Israel Foreign Ministry told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa "the Navy had made radio contact with the ship and ordered it to turn around, which it did."

Since August, three other vessels with humanitarian activists and aid have reached Gaza's shores after the Israel Navy avoided a confrontation and let them through despite initial threats to block their way. Israel at the time said it did not want to grant the organizers, the Free Gaza movement, undue attention by creating a confrontation.

Gaza - Hamas security forces on Saturday prevented would-be Hajj pilgrims who bypassed the government when applying to travel to Mecca, from reaching the Rafah crossing point with Egypt, witnesses said, in the latest incident in the Hamas-Fatah standoff.

"They installed checkpoints on the ways leading to Rafah crossing and forced us to go back," one of the witnesses said and asked his name not to be used.

Meanwhile, official Palestinian television reported that Hamas police scuffled with the pilgrims arriving at the Rafah crossing point. The claim could not confirmed since Gaza journalists were also denied access to the crossing.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian militants in the south-eastern Gaza Strip near the border with Israel Friday, killing one and injuring at least two others, witnesses said.

The gunmen clashing with the Israeli soldiers north-east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis were members of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees faction, Palestinian media reports said.

Palestinian militants responded by firing three mortar shells into Israel.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said she was checking the report.