The first rifts in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's expanded coalition emerged just a day after he brought the main opposition party into his government, with religious and secular parties exchanging threats Wednesday over draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews.
In a political development with global implications, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday signaled he soon might call early elections — a decision that could put Mideast peace efforts on hold for months and cast more uncertainty on Israel's deliberations over whether to attack Iran's nuclear program.
Israel cut working relations with the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday and will bar a U.N. team from entering Israel or the West Bank for a planned investigation of Jewish settlements, the Foreign Ministry said.
Israel's foreign minister on Sunday offered to send humanitarian aid to Syria through the International Committee of the Red Cross.
A Palestinian prisoner agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike to protest his imprisonment without charge after reaching a deal with Israel that will free him in April, the Israeli Justice Ministry said Tuesday.
The buzz around a possible military strike on Iran's nuclear program has shifted from whether it will happen to when and how. Events are conspiring to force choices on President Obama that he would rather avoid.
The chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee chided the Obama administration Tuesday, saying the U.S. support for Israel must go "beyond rhetoric" as she met with Israel's outspoken foreign minister.
Additional U.S. sanctions on Iran are more significant for their timing than their immediate effect on Iran's economy, coming as the United States and its allies are arguing that Israel should hold off on any military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities to allow more time for sanctions to work.
Israel's tough-talking foreign minister is taking on his most formidable opponent yet - the Jewish state's spy service, Mossad.
