Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel has foiled five suicide bombings and many other "terrorist" attacks since the start of the year.

Shin Bet, the domestic security service, and the army had prevented the bombings and 30 attempted kidnappings of soldiers, Netanyahu told visiting Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

Iran has ordered that Syria provide Hizbullah with advanced weapons; Israel will do all in its power to stop this transfer of weapons, the Israeli prime minister said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports in the media on Monday of alleged Israeli forces operating in Syria.

Iran is working round the clock to enlarge its nuclear infrastructure with the eventual aim of developing an industry capable of building up to 30 bombs a year, an Israeli minister charged on Monday.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said Tehran was "very close" to crossing the red line laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.

Palestinian preconditions for peace talks make a return to negotiations impossible for Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

"To me the setting of preconditions is an insurmountable obstacle," Netanyahu told the foreign affairs and defense committee, a parliamentary statement said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad may succeed in crushing the two-year-old uprising against his rule with the support of Iran and Hizbullah fighters, Israel's intelligence minister said on Monday.

"It might be the case that, at the end of the day, Assad .. might get the upper hand," he told a meeting of the Foreign Press Association. "I think that this is possible.

A controversial U.N. rights expert called Monday for an international investigation of Israel's treatment of Palestinian prisoners, decrying arbitrary detention, torture and coerced confessions among other alleged abuses.

"The treatment of thousands of Palestinians detained or imprisoned by Israel continues to be extremely worrisome," said Richard Falk, the U.N.'s outspoken expert on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was to return to the region this week for talks with Israelis and Palestinians, has postponed his visit, Israeli media reported on Monday.

According to Israel HaYom, a newspaper considered close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kerry had been due to arrive on Tuesday, but put off the visit "to give (Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas) more time" to decide whether to drop his insistence on a settlement freeze before returning to negotiations.

Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Avigdor Lieberman slammed the European Union on Monday for failing to label Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

He labeled the move as “ultimate hypocrisy."

Building starts on settler homes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank hit a seven-year high in the first quarter of 2013, Israeli watchdog Peace Now said on Sunday.

"Between January 2013 and March 2013, construction of 865 new housing units began," the NGO said in a statement quoting recently released government statistics.

Israel has been the target of a growing number of cyber attacks from Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

"In recent months, we have identified a significant rise in the scope of cyber attacks by Iran which are carried out directly by Iran and its proxies Hizbullah and Hamas," he told a cyber security conference at Tel Aviv University.