Israeli aircraft on Monday released scarlet heat balloons over Lebanon's regional waters, in the first such violation in around a year.

"Israeli warplanes dropped more than 30 scarlet heat balloons between Naqoura and Tyre within two hours," state-run National News Agency reported.

The Israeli parliament gave its seal of approval on Monday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new governing coalition, which includes a strong showing of pro-settlement hardliners.

A motion of confidence in the new administration, broadcast live on public television, gave it 68 votes in favor and 48 against.

The Palestinian Authority has urged the world to step up financial aid and press Israel to allow economic development, over fears of "political collapse" due to Israeli fiscal strangulation.

"We call on the international community to... pressure the government of Israel to release our revenues and to provide the financial support required to maintain basic functions and services," said a Palestinian Authority report seen by Agence France Presse on Monday.

Iranian and foreign nuclear experts gathered in Istanbul on Monday to discuss Tehran's controversial atomic program, a European Union spokeswoman said.

"The meeting is taking place at the expert-level as planned," said Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany.

Israel must immediately begin withdrawing its settlers from the Palestinian territories, a U.N. expert told diplomats Monday, even as the new Israeli government appeared set to strengthen the hand of the Jewish settler lobby.

Israel must "immediately and without preconditions cease the settlement activity and to initiate a process of withdrawal from the settlements," Christine Chanet told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, lamenting a "rampant annexation" of Palestinian territories.

An Israeli settler was moderately wounded in the northern West Bank on Monday when Palestinians in a passing car opened fire on a bus stop where he was standing, police and the army said.

The car fled the scene and troops were conducting searches in the area, a military spokesman said, indicating the shooting took place just outside Kedumim settlement west of Nablus.

A former Israeli judge wanted by Israel on fraud charges arrived back in the Jewish state on Sunday to face trial after he was extradited from his refuge in Peru, officials said.

A police spokesman said that Dan Cohen, who fled to Lima in 2005, was arrested on arrival at Ben Gurion airport.

Former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon was named Israel's new defense minister on Sunday to succeed Ehud Barak, a statement from the ruling rightwing Likud party said.

"In a period so critical to the security of the state of Israel, with all the region around us in turmoil, it is important that this position be filled by a man so rich in experience as Moshe Yaalon," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released by the party.

President Barack Obama looks forward to "working closely" with the new Israeli government formed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the U.S. leader's visit, officials said Saturday.

"The president congratulates the Israeli people, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the new members of the prime minister's governing coalition on the successful formation of Israel's new government," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu formally notified President Shimon Peres on Saturday that after 40 days of tortuous negotiations with potential coalition partners he had formed a new government.

"As you know I was able to form a government," Peres's office quoted premier Netanyahu as saying at a meeting in Jerusalem. "You gave me the task and I carried it out."