Tel Aviv/Beirut - Israel has deported most of the 18 passengers on board a Lebanese aid ship which was intercepted off the coast of the Gaza Strip Friday, and plans to put the remaining three on a plane to Britain and India in the coming days, police and the military have said.

Two Indians and one British woman were in a detention facility of the Israel Immigration Police, where they would remain until flown to their home countries, Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. "They have not and will not be allowed entry into Israel," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The Israeli military continued to deny allegations by one of the passengers, al-Jazeera reporter Salam Khoder, that the Israeli soldiers who stormed the Togolese-flagged "Tali," dubbed the "Brotherhood Ship," Thursday had assaulted those on board.

The ship had sought to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Despite a number of voyages of foreign activists which made it to the strip last summer and autumn, since it launched a 22-day offensive in Gaza aimed a curbing rocket attacks from the coastal salient at its southern towns and villages on December 27, Israel has allowed no ships to approach Gaza.

It has ordered several ships to turn around, but Thursday's seizure was the first since Israel imposed its blockade of Gaza more than two years ago.

The Gaza offensive ended three weeks ago with Israel declaring a unilateral truce, followed by Hamas and other militant factions in Gaza announcing a unilateral one of their own.

But efforts to achieve a more durable, long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the radical Islamist movement ruling Gaza have thus far failed.

Palestinian militants have continued sporadic rocket attacks, prompting Israel to respond with airstrikes.

Underscoring the fragility of the preliminary truce, two rockets landed in southern Israel Friday morning, after Israeli soldiers late Thursday shot dead a Palestinian militant near the southern Gaza border crossing of Sufa, who they said had hurled a hand grenade.

Israeli soldiers had also shot dead a Palestinian fighter of the militant group Islamic Jihad near the northern West Bank city of Jenin earlier Thursday.

The passengers of the Lebanese aid ship were freed at 2:00 am (0000 GMT) Friday after being held for several hours following the seizure of the ship by the Israeli navy.

Nine Lebanese nationals, among them journalists, and a Palestinian resident, returned to Beirut after they were handed over to UNIFIL the Lebanese-Israeli border crossing of Naqoura/Rosh Ha'Nikra at dawn.

Former Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem Hillarion Capucci, 86, who was on board the ship, was taken to the Golan Heights where he crossed into Syria.

Israel transferred the humanitarian aid on board the ship, including some 1,000 blood units and "small" amounts of water, food and blankets to Gaza Friday, but was seeking an international organization to accept the items.

An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Israel Radio, charged that the "small" quantities of humanitarian aid on the ship showed the voyage had been meant as a "provocation act for propaganda purposes."

Some of the crew still in Israel are set to sail the boat to Cyprus.

Minutes after being escorted across the Israeli border to southern Lebanon early Friday, al-Jazeera correspondent Khodr described the take-over of the ship, which had refused orders by the Israel Navy to change course and turn around as it entered Gaza waters.

"The Israeli ship intercepted the ship, fired at the ship and more than 30 soldiers came on to the boat and started beating the passengers," she said.

"They blinded our eyes, bounded our hands, kept us in uncomfortable conditions for one hour ... they also told us not to communicate with each other in Arabic."

She added that the Israeli army confiscated their videotapes.

"Not true," said an Israeli military spokesman in Jerusalem of the allegations that the troops had beaten up the passengers.

"During the take-over of the ship no acts of violence occurred and there was no need to use excessive force," he told dpa.

The military also denied the navy had opened fire at the ship. "There was no fire at all," said a military spokesman in Tel Aviv.

"It's not a pleasant procedure and certainly not a simple one when a ship is being taken over, especially if there is resistance," he noted, but insisted the soldiers had not aimed to harm those on board.

The Arab League has described the seizure of the vessel "an act of piracy," and protested the incident to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon.

Outgoing Israeli premier Ehud Olmert meanwhile promised US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to transfer to the cash-starved Gaza Strip some 175 million Israeli shekels (about 43 million US dollars) Friday, but the move was delayed after a right-wing group petitioned Israel's supreme court.

The money is owed by Israel, which collects custom duties on goods heading to the Palestinian autonomous areas, to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who planned to pay overdue salaries of civil servants. (dpa)