Nearly two thirds of Israeli Jews oppose a deal being reached between world powers and Iran on Tehran's controversial nuclear program, the results of a survey published on Friday said.

When asked "Should Israel support or oppose the nuclear agreement being discussed with Iran?" 65.5 percent said they were against it, and 16.2 percent expressed backing for an accord.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was unimpressed by a report from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday that Iran had frozen its nuclear activities.

Iran's archenemy Israel takes a hard line on international pressures for Tehran to rein in its controversial nuclear program and has not ruled out military action against it.

The Israeli government has accelerated a project for a national park between two Palestinian villages near annexed east Jerusalem to stop Palestinians building in the area, Israeli daily Haaretz reported Thursday.

The project, which authorities say is aimed at preserving the environment on the slopes of Mount Scopus, was announced at the end of October along with the construction of a further 1,500 homes in the east Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo.

Israeli Home Front Minister Gilad Erdan on Thursday slammed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intensive campaigning against an emerging nuclear deal with Iran.

"I was astounded to hear John Kerry's remarks about why the prime minister is criticizing the agreement being formulated in Geneva without waiting for it to be signed," Erdan told an Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv.

Five Palestinian children suffered from smoke inhalation when suspected Jewish extremists set fire to their West Bank home on Thursday in an apparent revenge attack, the family said.

The attackers torched the front of the Dar Khalil home in Sinjil, a village northeast of Ramallah, and spray-painted the words "Regards from Eden, Revenge!" in Hebrew in blue on a wall outside the house.

Egypt and Russia's defense ministers have discussed military collaboration between their countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday during a landmark visit to Cairo.

Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu led a high-level delegation on a visit that came in the wake of a diplomatic spat between Egypt and long-time ally the United States triggered by the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

Some 30 members of the European Parliament on Wednesday urged the EU to rethink July guidelines banning financial ties with Israeli settlements.

In a letter to the bloc's top diplomat Catherine Ashton, 27 MEPs across the political spectrum urged the EU's executive, the European Commission, to reverse or at least soften the guidelines setting a January 2014 ban on funding and business deals with settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem.

The entire team of Palestinian peace negotiators has resigned to protest continued Israeli settlement building, two of them said Wednesday, but president Mahmoud Abbas has yet to accept their resignations.

Negotiator Mohammed Shtayyeh told Agence France Presse the move was in response to "increasing settlement building (by Israel) and the absence of any hope of achieving results."

The Israeli army dispatched a mission to the Philippines on Wednesday to provide humanitarian assistance to victims of Typhoon Haiyan, a military spokeswoman said.

The mission consists of 148 specialists who will provide medical as well search-and-rescue services in Tacloban, the Philippine city worst hit by last week's deadly storm.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to scrap plans for a "record" 20,000 West Bank settler homes was driven by Israel's bid to scupper an Iranian nuclear deal, observers said Wednesday.

Netanyahu publicly forced Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who had approved the plans, to back down after drawing U.S. condemnation for a settlement project the Palestinians warned would end a fragile peace process.