Jerusalem votes for new mayor

Rabbi Meir Porush and venture capitalist Nir Barkat were among hundreds of hopefuls running in mayoral elections across the country.

Another closely watched contest was in Tel Aviv, where a two-term incumbent was fielding a surprisingly strong challenge by a Communist MP, according to a report by The Associated Press. Barkat, 49, was mounting a second run for the mayor's job, representing the city's dwindling secular population, which is leery of religious coercion.

Both he and Porush were trying to brand themselves as crossover candidates, appealing to both secular and religious with calls for affordable housing, better services, improved education and Jewish sovereignty over the entire city. Few of the city's roughly 250,000 Palestinians vote. They don't want to be seen as recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the city, whose eastern Arab sector Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed.

Israel eases fuel blockade
In another development, Israeli government yesterday reopened the terminal that handles all fuel supplies to Gaza to allow delivery of diesel to the Palestinian territory's sole power plant one day after it shuddered to a halt.

A U.N. agency, meanwhile, warned it will have to suspend food distribution on which a majority of Gaza's 1.5 million population depends unless Israel also allows in vital foodstuffs, reported Agence France-Presse.

An official of the Palestinian energy authority in Gaza confirmed that Israel resumed the fuel shipments and said the power plant should restart later in the day. The plant had ground to a halt on Monday evening after Israel stopped the flow of fuel to the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire by Palestinian militants in the besieged enclave.

On Monday evening, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak announced "minimal quantities" of fuel would be sent to Gaza, at the request of Tony Blair, the former British premier who now represents the Mideast diplomatic Quartet.