Israel's opposition Labor party announced on Friday that its members have elected a new leader -- former government minister Isaac Herzog -- seen as more open to joining the right-leaning ruling coalition.

Herzog defeated incumbent Shelly Yachimovich with 58.5 percent of the vote in Thursday's election among the party's some 55,000 members, official results showed.

Israel's Labor party, the government's main opposition, on Thursday started voting for a new leader, with members choosing between current head Shelly Yachimovich and rival Yitzhak Herzog.

Some 55,000 Labor members were to choose between Yachimovich and parliamentary faction chairman Herzog, with the vote ending at 10:00 pm (2000 GMT). Results were to be published early Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday warned world powers negotiating with Iran that an anti-Israel speech by Iran's supreme leader gave fresh proof over why Tehran must not acquire a nuclear weapon.

Speaking to leaders of Russia's Jewish community on the second day of a visit to Moscow to campaign against an emerging world power deal with Iran, Netanyahu accused Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of using the lexicon of the Nazi Holocaust.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that Israel needs to seek partners other than Washington, ratcheting up tensions with its closest ally as Iran nuclear talks come to a head.

The hawkish, blunt-talking chief diplomat, who returned to office earlier this month after seeing off graft charges, spoke as major powers, including the United States, sought to seal a deal with Iran on its controversial nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday insisted on the need for a "real" solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Putin said that the two men discussed the Iranian nuclear standoff "in detail" at Kremlin talks which overran by several hours. But the Israeli premier was insistent that only the strongest of diplomatic solutions was acceptable for his country.

Israeli and U.S. defense officials on Wednesday successfully carried out a second intercept test of a new system against short-range missiles, the defense ministry said.

"The Israel Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency completed a successful intercept test of the David's Sling Weapon System (DSWS) against a short-range ballistic missile today," it said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived on Thursday in Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin, in a last-minute bid to influence an emerging nuclear deal with Iran strongly opposed by the Jewish state.

An Agence France Presse correspondent accompanying the Israeli premier said Netanyahu arrived in Moscow in the early afternoon and made no comment to reporters during the flight.

Iran's Speaker Ali Larijani on Wednesday condemned the suicide blasts that targeted the Iranian Embassy in Beirut and stressed that the U.S. and Israel “have benefited most from such terrorist operations.”

In remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency, Larijani stressed that “the U.S. and the Zionist regime have always wished for creation of chaos in Lebanon.”

Two Israeli soldiers were wounded on Tuesday while attempting to carry out a controlled explosion of unexploded ordnance near the Lebanese border, an army spokeswoman said.

"Two Israeli soldiers were wounded while blowing up explosives during a routine operation near the Lebanese border," the spokeswoman said, without elaborating.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that 19 of its 20 construction projects in Gaza had ground to a halt because of an Israeli block on building materials.

UNRWA chief Filippo Grandi told donor representatives that since March the agency had "not had any construction projects cleared by the Israeli government, and for the past month, has been unable to import building materials."