An ultra-Orthodox Jewish prohibition on agricultural work every seventh year could be a boon to struggling farmers in the Gaza Strip, Israel's defense ministry announced Thursday.

Israel will import produce from the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time in seven years, the body responsible for coordinating Israeli government activity in the Palestinian territories (COGAT) said.

Suspected Jewish extremists torched two cars and scrawled graffiti on a nearby wall in a West Bank village before dawn Thursday, Palestinian residents said, the latest in a series of vandalism attacks.

Near the two burnt-out vehicles in Al-Mughayer, east of Ramallah, someone had written "death to Arabs" on the wall of a home, an Agence France Presse photographer said.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam stressed that the endorsement of the two controversial petroleum decrees requires a political consensus, pointing out that he is following up developments in this regard.

“When the rivals reach consensus over the two decrees I will discuss them at the cabinet,” Salam said in comments published in As Safir newspaper on Thursday.

Energy and Water Minister Arthur Nazarian and the Lebanese Petroleum Administration stressed Wednesday that any data resulting from geological surveys for the country's offshore gas and oil “has not been handed over to any side,” refuting media reports.

This data “is the property of the Lebanese state, and the ministry and the administration are exerting efforts to maintain it and safeguard it in line with the applicable laws,” Nazarian and the LPA said in a joint statement.

Thousands of Israeli women, including Jews and Arabs, gathered outside parliament in Jerusalem Wednesday urging a peace agreement with the Palestinians, two weeks ahead of a snap general election.

Despite intermittent rain, members of Women Wage Peace, a group formed after last year's devastating war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, were huddled a short distance from the Knesset.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday said Israel creates the "greatest danger" in the region, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against a nuclear deal with the Islamic republic.

In a speech on Capitol Hill, Netanyahu said Tuesday the nuclear agreement U.S. President Barack Obama wants with Tehran "is so bad... it paves Iran's path to the bomb" and "would spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet".

Israel is to double the amount of water it channels annually to Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip, a defense ministry body said Wednesday.

A humanitarian crisis has gripped Gaza since a July-August war with Israel, which controls most of the territory's resources, its imports and exports as well as the movement of people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's blistering attack on a U.S. push for a nuclear accord with Iran soured ties with Washington but could boost his prospects in elections this month, experts say.

Netanyahu, seeking re-election on March 17, infuriated the White House with his address Tuesday to U.S. Congress, where he laid out Israeli concerns at an emerging world deal with Iran on its nuclear program.

The United States said Wednesday tough challenges remained to seal a nuclear deal with Iran, vowing not to be distracted by external politics in its quest to stop Tehran acquiring the atomic bomb.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif wrapped up three days of "intense" nuclear negotiations in the Swiss lakeside town of Montreux with still no deal, as a March 31 deadline for a framework agreement looms.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday talks with Israel are still on the table, despite moves against the Jewish state at the U.N. and numerous failed rounds of negotiations.

Abbas was addressing the Palestinian leadership at the opening of a two-day conference in the West Bank to discuss the future of the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose existence is under threat after Israel cut off a key source of funds.