Some 25 Palestinian organizations have invited pro-Palestinians to join in the campaign “Welcome to Palestine” between April 15 and 25. Israel, which has already beefed up security at Ben Gurion Airport, has declared it would detain and deport the activists. Already, British airline Jet2.com has canceled the flight tickets of three women who planned to travel to Palestine on April 13, while Lufthansa canceled dozens of passengers who signed up join the Welcome to Palestine campaign. A Luthansa spokesperson said they were following Israeli directives not to allow these passengers on flights.

"If they arrive in Israel they will be identified, removed from the plane, their entry into Israel will be prevented and they will be moved to a detention facility until they are flown out of Israel," Israeli public security minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said.

On April 12 President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Japan, the first stop on an international tour. Here he met with several Japanese officials, including Yutaka Iimura, who is Japan’s special Middle East peace envoy. The following day the President met with Arab ambassadors in Tokyo and made a call for a withdrawal of Israeli troops on Palestinian land, suggesting replacing them with NATO forces. After Japan, Abbas is going to the Maldives, but first he is going to Sri Lanka, where he is scheduled to arrive on Sunday, April 15. In Sri Lanka, Abbas will sign an agreement to improve bilateral relations between the two countries. As the President is touring Asia, the planned consultations over an expected reshuffle in the Palestinian Authority are to be delayed until he returns.

Before leaving on the tour, Abbas met with the Geneva Peace Initiative and Palestinian-Israeli Peace Alliance in Ramallah on April 8. Here he announced plans to pursue Palestinian membership, and an upgraded observer status in the UN General Assembly, if Israel does not respond to his demands for the resumption of negotiations. After the US announced that it would use its veto power if the Palestinian application for full statehood recognition came to a vote in the UN Security Council, seeking to be an observer state (instead of an observer entity as the PLO is now) in the UN General Assembly could be a possibility. Abbas has written a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that is to be delivered during a meeting in Jerusalem next week between Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad and Netanyahu. In the letter he gives the Israeli government one month to respond positively to the Palestinian positions on a prospective peace deal, if not, he will resume the UN process and go to the UN General Assembly.

On April 11, the Middle East Quartet committee met and released a statement criticizing Israeli settlement building and calling on donors to meet aid pledges to the Palestinians.

“The Quartet expressed concern about unilateral and provocative actions by either party, including continued settlement activity, which cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations, the only way to a just and durable solution to the conflict," the statement read.

While the Palestinians welcomed the statement, they also said the Quartet should provide mechanisms for implementation or else the statements would remain just that. “The Palestinians have always committed their obligations, while the Israeli have not,” said PLO executive committee member Saeb Erekat.

The Quartet also called on the parties to work constructively together to take concrete steps to address the Palestinian Authority's financial crisis and “preserve and build on the Palestinian Authority's institutional gains, and expand economic opportunities for the Palestinian people".

On that note, the US State Department said it had notified the Congress that it would release $58.6 million in US economic aid to the Palestinian Authority, a move taken despite the objections of senior Republican lawmake, rRep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

On April 13, Israeli forces opened fire at a Palestinian fishing boat off the coast of the northwestern Gaza Strip. According to witnesses the gunfire caused the boat to sink, however no injuries were reported. The reason for the assault was, according to an Israeli spokeswoman, that the fishing boat “deviated from the designated fishing area” and that the shots fired at the boat’s engine were warning shots after no respond to calls to turn back. The spokeswoman claimed that the boat returned to the designated fishing area after the shots were fired and did not sink. This was the second such incident this week as the Israeli navy fired live ammunition at a fishing boat on Monday, April 9, as well.

From Sunday, April 8, through April 11, Israeli soldiers set up a blockade around the town of ar-Ram, east of Jerusalem, preventing vehicles from entering and leaving the town. The Israeli military claimed that the blockade was a consequence of a recent increase in stone throwing by youth in the area. Due to the blockade teachers and students were prevented from getting to school, workers from getting to their place of work and ambulances from reaching the hospital. Further, the town of ar-Ram serves as a transportation hub for the entire West Bank as it is located close to the Qalandia checkpoint. The blockade has impacted the transportation infrastructure on the West Bank severely. The barriers were removed later in the week following consultations between Israeli and Palestinian security officials.

In other news, an official from the Palestinian Authority announced on April 12 that the PA has agreed to give financial support to prisoners detained by Israel before the Oslo Accords. The Ministry of Detainee Affairs and the Finance Ministry have agreed that these former detainees will receive around NIS600,000.

On the same day, April 12, three people were injured by settlers in the village of Yanun in the north of the West Bank. The settlers threw rocks and physically assaulted villagers who were tending their land in Nablus. Five villagers were arrested by Israeli forces that also fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the villagers, supporting the settlers who were trying to prevent the villagers from accessing their land.