Israel's chief peace negotiator on Thursday accused a key coalition partner of deliberately seeking to sabotage talks with the Palestinians by ramping up settlement construction.

Speaking just hours before the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on his second visit within a week, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni accused the far-right national religious Jewish Home of deliberately promoting settlement projects in a bid "to derail" the ongoing negotiations.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry marked his 70th birthday Wednesday with another trip to Israel, in his dogged quest for an elusive Middle East peace deal.

But there will be no gift-wrapped agreement awaiting him when he is due to land back in Israel on Thursday, less than a week after his last trip to the Jewish state.

Early snow has surprised many Israelis and Palestinians as a blustery storm, dubbed Alexa, brought gusty winds, torrential rains and heavy snowfall to parts of the Middle East.

Jerusalem schools cancelled classes and buses in and out of the city were not operating Thursday. Palm and cypress trees were blanketed in white, people threw snowballs along the walls of Jerusalem's Old City and a snowman was built across from a U.S. Consulate building.

The refusal of Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross to accept blood from an Ethiopian Jewish lawmaker sparked demands on Wednesday for a review of guidelines seen as deeply discriminatory.

The rejection of the blood from Pnina Tamano-Shata by an official of Magen David Adom came at a donor drive outside parliament and was caught on video footage which was widely aired by Israeli television channels.

The United Nations Wednesday slammed Israel's demolition of 30 Palestinian properties in the West Bank, saying it displaced some families for the second time in less than two weeks.

"I am concerned about the destruction of Palestinian structures in the Jordan Valley yesterday (Tuesday)," U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator James Rawley said in a statement.

World leaders have heaped praise on the late Nelson Mandela, but among the countries paying tribute are some that had long backed the South African apartheid regime that jailed him.

Many of the eulogies for the iconic peacemaker have glossed over Western support for the white supremacist regime in Pretoria during the Cold War, when Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) were blacklisted as Soviet proxies.

Iran on Tuesday dismissed an offer from Israel's president to meet his Iranian counterpart as a propaganda ploy to ease Israeli isolation over a nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers.

"This propaganda to help the regime out of isolation will prove fruitless," foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told reporters.

A diplomatic spat has erupted between Israel and Romania after Bucharest reportedly refused to allow Romanian construction workers to be employed in West Bank settlements, Israel's military radio said Tuesday.

The row comes in the wake of tensions between Israel and the European Union over new guidelines that bar EU funding for any Israeli entity operating in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel's parliament has approved a law which allows illegal immigrants from Africa to be detained for up to a year without trial, MPs announced on Tuesday.

The government-backed bill amends earlier legislation from 2012 under which illegal immigrants could be held for three years without trial that was overturned by the Supreme Court in September.

Israeli forces are carrying out drills to confront several scenarios in case of a future war with Hizbullah, including an attack on the Lebanese army, a high-ranking Israeli army official said.

Al-Akhbar newspaper on Tuesday quoted the official as saying that Lebanon's army “could become the enemy at any moment.”