Two passengers found with ammunition hidden inside toys were arrested on Monday at Israel's Ben Gurion airport, an airport spokesman said. 

One of them, a 36-year-old Israeli man, was arrested as he was about to board an Uzbekistan Airways flight for Tashkent.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called for an increase in defense spending, after a bloody and costly war in Gaza.

"There is no leader who, faced with the threats that are multiplying around us, would not allow or demand a significant increase in the defense budget, to counter security challenges," he said in a statement.

Israel warned its citizens Monday to be on alert for possible attacks in Europe by Islamic militants who have fought in Iraq and Syria.

The alert comes as Israelis prepare to head overseas for a traditional holiday period starting with the Jewish New Year on September 24.

The Israeli army is preparing to fight Hizbullah, which has developed new capabilities due to its experience in Syria's war, a senior Israeli military official said.

“Hizbullah’s confidence is growing, along with its combat experience in Syria,” the Jerusalem Post quoted the officer, who was not named, as saying.

Scores of veterans of elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200 rallied to its defense on Sunday after 43 comrades said they would no longer take part in its "injustices" against millions of Palestinians.

The open letter, which was sent to Israel's political and military leadership last week, was one of the most high-profile expressions of conscientious objection in years.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will meet his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Paris on Friday, ahead of a key address to the United Nations, his spokesman said.

Abbas will spend two days in Paris before heading to New York, where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly, which opens on September 24, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP on Sunday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jewish leaders will speak Sunday at a Berlin rally against anti-Semitism after the latest Gaza conflict sparked an upsurge in hate speech against Jews.

Under the banner "Stand Up: Jew Hatred - Never Again!" political and religious leaders and thousands of people are expected at the rally from 1300 GMT at the iconic Brandenburg Gate.

Hamas' former Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya said on Saturday the militant Islamic Palestinian group would not hold any direct talks with Israel. 

There would be "no direct negotiations with the Zionist enemy," Haniya said in a public address in the Gaza Strip, and called on Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to "review" his own strategy of talks with Israel.

Rebels including al-Qaida loyalists have seized most of the Syrian side of the armistice line with Israel on the Golan Heights, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

Al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front and its allies launched a major offensive against government forces in Quneitra province last month, capturing the sole crossing point over the armistice line to the Israeli-occupied sector of the strategic plateau.

Some 4,000 mourners turned out Friday for the West Bank funeral of a man whose controversial death in an Israeli jail earlier this week has incensed the Palestinians.

Mourners crowded around the body of Raed al-Jaabari, which was wrapped in a Palestinian flag, shouting in grief during the funeral procession in his hometown of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, an AFP correspondent said.