Iran has freed an Iranian-Canadian journalist dubbed "the blogfather" who was jailed for 19 years for traveling to Israel, local media reported Thursday.

Hossein Derakhshan was arrested in November 2008 after visiting Israel -- Iran's arch-foe -- with his Canadian passport on what he called a mission to breed understanding between Iranians and Israelis. 

A Palestinian has confessed to deliberately running down three Israeli soldiers outside a West Bank refugee camp, which he initially claimed was an accident, police said in a statement on Thursday.

"During interrogation by the Shin Bet (security service), he confessed to running down the soldiers as part of a planned attack," the statement said of the November 5 incident in which the soldiers were injured.

Israel's government has blamed President Mahmud Abbas for anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem, but the Palestinian leader wields neither the political influence nor the security capacity to rein it in, experts say.

Abbas, who aims to pursue statehood through political means at international level, has no interest in encouraging violence, and Israel's accusations are a rhetorical device aimed at harming his diplomatic drive, they told AFP.

It's a sunny morning in Jerusalem, the cafes are full and the shops are bustling, as if this week's attack on a synagogue, the deadliest in years, had changed nothing of the city's daily routine. And yet.

Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy City have been accustomed to living with the threat of violence for decades, but recent weeks have seen fears rise to new levels, with random, deadly assaults targeting ordinary citizens in broad daylight.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday strongly condemned the "despicable terrorist attack" on a Jerusalem synagogue that left five dead and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to restore calm.

Four rabbis and a policeman were killed Tuesday after two Palestinians wielding meat cleavers and a pistol launched a rare assault on a place of worship in West Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem municipality said it approved Wednesday the construction of 78 new homes for Jewish settlers in two neighborhoods of occupied Arab east Jerusalem.

The announcement comes with tensions in the Holy City at the highest in years, partly over Palestinian objections to Jewish settlers moving in.

Shortly before dawn Wednesday, a powerful explosion ripped out the walls of the home of Abdelrahman Shaludi, a 21-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem who rammed his car into Israeli pedestrians.

In demolishing the home of the Palestinian behind last month's attack, which killed a baby and a woman before police shot and fatally wounded him, Israel renewed a controversial policy aimed at deterrence but one which is likely to further inflame tensions.

Israel began a crackdown in east Jerusalem Wednesday, a day after an assault by Palestinians on a synagogue killed five people, razing the home of a resident behind an earlier deadly attack.

The demolition, which took place before dawn, was carried out after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a harsh response to the synagogue attack which killed four rabbis at prayer and a policeman.

Spanish lawmakers adopted a motion Tuesday calling on the government to recognize a Palestinian state, following similar moves in other European nations.

The motion submitted by the opposition Socialists asks the conservative government to recognize Palestine in coordination with any similar move by the European Union.

Spain's parliament will vote Tuesday on a non-binding motion calling on the conservative government to recognize a Palestinian state in coordination with any similar EU move, parliamentary sources said.

The ruling Popular Party and the main opposition Socialists were in talks on the final wording of the motion which has the support of the government, sources from the two parties said.