Fourteen Palestinians were killed on Saturday and 32 injured, some seriously, when their bus collided head-on with a truck in Jordan, the emergency services in the kingdom said.

The passengers had been on the way home to the West Bank from Saudi Arabia where they had performed the Muslim minor pilgrimage or omra when the accident happened.

Interpol said Friday it was not lifting arrest warrants for Iranians suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, despite Tehran's steps to co-operate.

Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman read from a letter announcing the international police organization's decision at a press conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday he had signed agreements with key coalition partners, forming a new government just over 24 hours ahead of a deadline and days before a milestone visit from U.S. President Barack Obama.

The alliance of Netanyahu's Likud party and former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu had been locked in intense negotiations for weeks with the centrist Yesh Atid and far-right Jewish Home parties who together held the key to building a government with a majority in the 120-seat parliament.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his center-right partners have overcome differences with rightwing factions to pave the way for an accord on a new government on Friday, reports said.

Media outlets said that Yair Lapid, head of Yesh Atid, and Naftali Bennett of Jewish Homeland renounced their demands for the post of deputy prime minister, a key obstacle to finalizing a coalition agreement.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday said he had no plans for "immediately" releasing an Israeli jailed for spying who has been in prison since 1985, saying he was guilty of "a very serious crime."

"I have no plans for releasing Jonathan Pollard immediately," he said in an exclusive interview with Israel's private Channel 2 television, broadcast a week before the U.S. leader arrives on a historic three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

UNIFIL Official Spokesman Andrea Tenenti stressed Thursday that the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon does not approve of Israel's violations of Lebanon's airspace, noting that UNIFIL will report to the U.N. Security Council on these violations.

In an interview with the National News Agency, Tenenti said the Israeli overflights represent a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah.

An accidental explosion at a fireworks factory in Israel's Western Galilee was heard in several Lebanese border towns on Thursday.

Al-Manar television said an explosion was heard in northern Israel facing the Lebanese southern town of Yarin.

Israel's military intelligence chief on Thursday said the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has contingency plans to use chemical weapons as it battles insurgents.

Speaking at Israel's annual Herzliya Conference on security and policy, Major General Avi Kohavi said Assad was still in control of his stockpile of chemical weapons, which the Jewish state fears could fall into the hands of militants.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday he hoped to establish peace talks with Israel later this year while admitting that the chances for progress were slim.

Abbas said during a visit to Moscow he hoped "that later this year, we will see the start of substantive negotiations with Israel".

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Thursday welcomed the election of Pope Francis, saying he represented "holy modesty" and inviting him to visit the Holy Land.

"The newly-elected pope represents devotion, the love of God, the love of peace, a holy modesty and a new continent which is now awakening," Peres said a day after the election of Argentinian cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as the first-ever pontiff from Latin America.