Israel was on Wednesday waiting to hear when captive soldier Gilad Shalit would return home, a day after the Jewish state inked a deal with Hamas that will see 1,000 Palestinian prisoners freed.

Anno

Thousands of Palestinians massed in the West Bank city of Ramallah Sunday to give their president a hero's welcome for submitting a historic bid for UN membership.

President Mahmud Abbas was expected

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked the United Nations on Friday to recognise a state for his people, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the world body as a 'theater of the

Last-minute talks and the threat of a US veto have failed to divert Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas from his historic quest to seek state membership at the United Nations on Friday.

Palestinians on Thursday slammed US President Barack Obama's United Nations address a day earlier, calling it a display of US bias towards Israel.

Commentators, politicians and ordinary Palestinians

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday urged Israel to recognise a Palestinian state and not 'lose an opportunity for peace,' ahead of a formal request for Palestinian UN membership this week.

US photographer Spencer Tunick is staging one of his trademark mass studies of nude volunteers on Saturday, with a thousand Israelis posing on a private Dead Sea beach.

The shoot is part of a bid to

Hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Wednesday there will be 'harsh and grave consequences' if the Palestinians persist with their plan to seek UN membership as a state.

Speakin

Israel and Egypt's leadership tried on Saturday to limit the damage in ties after protesters stormed Israel's embassy in Cairo, trashing offices and prompting the evacuation of nearly the entire staff

Gaza militants agreed to a cease-fire with Israel to stop three days of violence, a Hamas official said on Sunday, after a deadly attack on Israelis near the Egypt-Israel border set off a round of Israeli airstrikes and rocket barrages from Gaza.