JERUSALEM - Israel’s Army Radio says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stopped approving new construction in West Bank settlements in what may be a bid to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.
 There was no confirmation of the settlement freeze from the office of Netanyahu, who was in Shanghai on Tuesday as part of an official […]

JERUSALEM - Israel has attacked targets in Syria for the second time in three days. 
 Loud explosions rocked Damascus as Israeli warplanes struck targets deep inside Syria.  The Syrian news agency says Israeli missiles blasted a military research center near the capital.
 Foreign intelligence sources say Israel hit sophisticated Iranian-made missiles believed to be headed to the […]

GAZA - Israel launched an air strike on the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the first such attack since an eight-day war in November, Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the territory, and Israel’s military said.
 ”Occupation planes bombarded an open area in northern Gaza, there were no wounded,” a statement from the Hamas Interior Ministry said. […]

JERUSALEM - U.S. President Barack Obama departs Washington Tuesday for Israel, the first stop of a four-day Mideast trip also taking him to the West Bank and Jordan. Obama will hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and will discuss Syria and Iran.
 President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will greet President Obama on […]

JERUSALEM - Key parties in Israel have reached an agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on forming a governing coalition.
 The deal signed on Friday has Netanyahu’s Likud party alliance partnering with the secular Yesh Atid party, the far-right Jewish Home Party and a small, centrist party headed by former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
 Disagreements over the […]

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will soon make his first visit to Israel as U.S. leader. He also will go to the West Bank and Jordan for wide-ranging talks that include the situation in Syria and tensions with Iran.
 White House press secretary Jay Carney confirmed the planned trip during Tuesday’s White House news briefing after […]

WASHINGTON - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made his country’s first public comments about an airstrike in Syria, without directly confirming Israel was responsible for the operation.
 
 U.S. and regional security sources have said Israeli aircraft hit a Syrian convoy Wednesday heading toward Lebanon and transporting anti-aircraft weapons, likely intended for the Lebanese militant group […]

JERUSALEM - Israel intends to reinforce its frontier with neighboring Syria amid growing concerns about the fallout from the Syrian civil war.
 Israel plans to erect a new five-meter-high fence on the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, and fortify it with trenches, barbed wire and a road for army patrols.
 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told […]

JERUSALEM - Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned on Friday after being charged with fraud and breach of trust, in a move that could have repercussions on next month’s election.
 
 ”I have decided to resign my post as foreign minister and deputy prime minister and … also to remove my [parliamentary] immunity forthwith so I can […]

JERUSALEM - Israel has revealed plans to build 3,000 new homes for its settlers in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, following the Palestinian Authority’s successful United Nations recognition bid.
 
Israeli officials, speaking to the media on condition of anonymity, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had authorized the building plans, as well as preliminary […]

JERUSALEM - Israel says it will withhold more than $100 million in taxes and tariff funds it collects on behalf of Palestinians to punish them for their successful bid to win United Nations statehood.
 
Sunday’s move came as cheering crowds welcomed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas back to the West Bank city of Ramallah following his diplomatic […]

JERUSALEM - Attacks rocked both sides of the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip Wednesday, despite intensified diplomatic efforts to halt the violence between Israel and Hamas militants that has killed more than 130 Palestinians and five Israelis.
 
Inside Israel, a bomb blast on a bus in Tel Aviv injured at least 10 people. Authorities […]

JERUSALEM - As diplomacy intensifies to stop the cross-border attacks between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical workers say more than 19 people were killed by Israeli air strikes Monday, bringing the death toll to at least 96 Palestinians and three Israelis.
 
The attacks continued as diplomatic efforts in Cairo are reportedly making headway at […]

JERUSALEM - Israeli media say rockets fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip have killed three people, a day after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed the top military commander of Hamas.
 
Palestinians bombarded southern Israel as Israelis pounded Gaza with fresh strikes Thursday.  Terrified residents stayed indoors in anticipation of heavy fighting in the […]

JERUSALEM - An Israeli airstrike in Gaza has killed the top military commander of Hamas with Israel warning other Hamas members not to “show their faces above ground” in the next few days.
 
An Israeli missile killed Ahmed al-Jaabari Wednesday as he drove in a car in Gaza City, shattering a tacit cease-fire that lasted less […]

JERUSALEM - Israel fired a missile into Syria in what the military described as a “warning shot,” after a stray mortar shell fired from Syria landed near an Israeli military post in the Golan Heights. It was the first time Israel fired into Syria since the civil war erupted there more than a year and […]

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up threats to attack Iran over its nuclear program, which he says is being used to develop nuclear weapons.  He says if the international community is not willing to act against Iran, it should not demand that Israel hold its fire.
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday indicated […]

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will sign legislation Friday that expands military ties between the United States and Israel.
The bill signing ceremony at the White House comes just a day before Obama’s presumptive Republican challenger, Mitt Romney visits Israel, Saturday.   Romney has criticized the president over his treatment of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  […]

JERUSALEM - Israel is mourning after a suicide bomber in Bulgaria killed five Israelis in an attack on a tourist bus Wednesday. Israel’s leader is talking tough.
Israeli air force planes flew the dead, wounded and survivors of the Bulgaria bus bombing back home. Other flights took Israeli security and intelligence officials to Bulgaria to assist in […]

JERUSALEM — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is having talks with Israeli leaders on the conflict in Syria, the political transition in Egypt, and the perceived threat from Iran’s nuclear program.
Secretary Clinton says she has come to Israel “at a moment of great change and transformation in the region.”
 
“It is a time of uncertainty […]

JERUSALEM - Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who staunchly opposed giving up land to the Palestinians, has died.  He was 96.
Shamir served as prime minister from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992. 
 
He was known for resisting international pressure to make concessions, yet initiated a peace process in Spain that led to […]

JERUSALEM - Violence has erupted on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. At least one Palestinian has been killed and 20 others are wounded. One Israeli was also injured.
Ambulances ferried wounded Palestinians to hospitals in Gaza as Israel launched air strikes. On the other […]

JERUSALEM - Israel is deporting a first planeload of African migrants back to their home country.
Israel says the deportation of 120 Africans to South Sudan is the first step toward expelling thousands more. More than 4,000 migrants who came from African countries that have friendly ties with Israel will be sent home on weekly flights.
 
Describing […]

JERUSALEM - Israel has broken its silence on the conflict in neighboring Syria and is condemning the violence there.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says an “axis of evil” is behind the atrocities in Syria.
 
Netanyahu told the Cabinet that Iran and the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon are assisting the Syrian government in the massacre of […]