Israel has announced that it is easing some restrictions on the impoverished Gaza Strip and West Bank as it negotiates a final peace deal with the Palestinians.

Israeli minister of international relations Yuval Steinitz said Wednesday that 5,000 new work permits were being issued for Palestinians to work in Israel, the opening hours of the key Allenby Bridge crossing would be extended, and new imports of some building materials would be allowed into Gaza.

The United States is planning to step up efforts to help reach an elusive Middle East peace deal, having set an ambitious goal of sealing an agreement within nine months.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry revealed for the first time Wednesday that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have now met directly seven times since the peace talks were relaunched in late July.

Israel derided Iran's new president as an expert salesman who is bullish on nuclear proliferation in a bitingly sarcastic tweet sent Wednesday.

It came from the Israeli Embassy in Washington and poses the question of what President Hasan Rowhani's LinkedIn page might look like.

As Iran's new president reaches out to the West with a message of moderation, Israel's hawkish approach on Tehran's nuclear program looks likely to come under pressure, experts say.

President Hasan Rowhani on Tuesday emphasized the peaceful nature of the Islamic republic's atomic program, telling the U.N. General Assembly that "nuclear weapons... have no place in Iran's security and defense doctrine."

The Sukkot holiday has come at a time of raised hopes for the small Jewish community in Iran of a new approach towards minorities under the Islamic republic's new President Hasan Rowhani.

In a radical about-turn from his Holocaust-denying predecessor, Rowhani, in an interview with CNN, condemned the Nazi genocide as a "reprehensible" crime.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu early Wednesday blasted Iranian President Hassan Rowhani for making what he described as a "cynical speech that was full of hypocrisy" at the U.N. General Assembly.

Rowhani, who swept to power in June on promises to ease tensions with the West and combat U.S.-led sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy, said in his speech that his country posed no threat and was not pursuing nuclear weapons.

Continued control of the Gaza Strip by Islamist movement Hamas is in Israel's security interests, the Israeli army's top commander for the region said on Tuesday.

It was the first time a senior commander had publicly stated an Israeli interest in continued control of the territory by a group with which it fought a deadly eight-day conflict just last November.

The Israeli delegation will boycott Iranian President Hassan Rowhani's address to the U.N. General Assembly later Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced.

Netanyahu sees no change in policy from the new Iranian president sufficient to warrant abandoning the boycott observed by Israeli delegates for the speeches of his hardline predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his office said.

Israel, which is said to have aided Kenya during the deadly attack on a Nairobi mall, has long viewed East Africa as a region of major strategic and economic importance.

"Kenya, Ethiopia and Eritrea are three countries which are crucial for Israel because they act as a buffer zone in a region which is seeing Islamic fundamentalism growing at a rapid pace," said Galia Sabar, head of African studies at Tel Aviv University.

Syrian President Bashar Assad accused foreign nations of giving orders to "terrorists" battling his government's forces in an interview with China's state CCTV broadcast Monday.

He spoke as U.N. Security Council members negotiate a resolution on how to respond if Syria fails to fulfill an international deal to eliminate its chemical weapons arsenal.