ISRAEL

U.S. President Barack Obama's special peace envoy sought on Thursday an early relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian talks, but Israel said Washington's goal of comprehensive peace was an illusion.

The Palestinian Authority Tuesday said it had asked the International Telecommunication Union to press Israel to release more frequencies for a long-awaited second mobile phone operator.

The olive branch is a symbol of peace in the Middle East, but for Yusuf Sabaani the thousands of tiny olive seedlings he has just planted are a more tangible image of his dream for the future of his children.

A senior Palestinian official on Tuesday accused Israel of deliberately creating an extremely dangerous situation in East Jerusalem, to trigger violence, justify a crackdown and tighten its grip on the disputed city.

A court in Azerbaijan sentenced a group of militant Islamists including two Lebanese men to between 12 and 15 years in jail on Monday for plotting attacks on the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Baku.

Israeli holding company IDB Holding Corp said on Saturday it was close to signing a deal to acquire from HSBC the bank's headquarters in Manhattan for $330 million.

Israeli planes carried out strikes on tunnels used for smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt border and a building east of Gaza city on Saturday, causing damage but no casualties, security forces and the Israeli military said.

An Israeli soldier held captive for the past three years by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas smiled briefly and looked healthy in a two-minute Hamas video handed over to Israel on Friday.

Israeli writer Amos Oz is favorite to be picked for the 2009 Nobel literature prize next Thursday, but with the judging notoriously hard to predict, he is far from a safe bet.

The United Nations put off taking action Friday on a U.N. report that accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in Gaza, after U.S. pressure aimed at getting the peace process back on track.

A two-minute video of an Israeli soldier held captive by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the past three years shows him healthy and coherent and speaking to the camera, Israeli officials said on Friday.

An Israeli court has stepped into a battle over a legacy that may include lost manuscripts of the great 20th century writer Franz Kafka, ordering an elderly heiress to open up a secret hoard of papers, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday the United Nations would deal a fatal blow to prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace if it endorsed a report critical of Israel's January war in Gaza.

Clean technology has for the first time become the top category in U.S. venture capital investment, eclipsing biotech and software, as private money follows the government's lead, the Cleantech group reported.

Suddenly, the Iranian existential threat seems to have receded from Israel's horizon.

Michelle Moran never had any doubts what she wanted to be in life -- a writer.

Iran said on Tuesday it would refuse to discuss a newly declared nuclear plant at forthcoming international talks and cautioned Western powers it could curb cooperation further if they repeated past mistakes.

Iranian students chanted anti-government slogans to protest a minister's visit to their university in Tehran Tuesday, a reformist website reported.

Students demonstrated at Tehran University against the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday, a reformist website reported, more than three months after Iran's disputed presidential election.

Oil rose more than 1 percent toward $67 a barrel on Monday as U.S. equities jumped and news emerged that Iran was test-firing missiles.

Oil rose nearly 2 percent above $67 a barrel on Monday as U.S. equities jumped and news emerged that Iran was test-firing missiles.