Prosecutors demanded on Wednesday that former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert do six months of community service for graft while waiving a requirement that he be barred from public office, an official said.

The prosecution made the request during deliberations for sentencing in the Jerusalem District Court, due on September 24, according to the judicial official.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday canceled a security cabinet meeting after details from an initial session, which reportedly concerned the Iranian threat, were leaked to the press.

"A short time after the conclusion of yesterday's meeting, a very serious thing happened: a leak from within the cabinet's discussions," said a statement from his office.

The Palestinians on Wednesday welcomed news that a delegation of French judges investigating suspicions that Yasser Arafat was poisoned was to travel to the West Bank.

"We welcome the visit of the French committee that was formed to look into the late president Arafat's death," said a statement from Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the Palestinian committee investigating the circumstances of the veteran leader's death in November 2004.

U.S. Democrats dropped a reference to Jerusalem being the capital of Israel from their election platform, prompting scorn from rival Mitt Romney Thursday.

Since 1992 Democrats have stated unequivocally that "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel," as they did in 2008.

A reporter with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Uri Blau, was sentenced to four months of community service under a plea bargain for possessing classified military documents, the court said on Monday.

"I accept the plea bargain reached by the parties, and sentence the accused to a single term of four months' jail which may be served by means of community service... starting from 11 September 2012," wrote Judge Ido Druyan at Tel Aviv Magistrates Court.

An Egyptian security official said Monday some 20 tanks have been withdrawn from the Sinai Peninsula after a month-long deployment in an anti-terrorism military offensive.

The tank deployment earlier this month brought complaints from Israel as the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries restricts heavy weapons in the peninsula, which borders the Jewish state.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration is undertaking "a range of steps short of war" that it hopes will prevent an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, The New York Times reported Monday.

The measures are designed to force Tehran to negotiate more seriously over its nuclear program and offer Israeli officials a credible alternative to a military strike on the Islamic state, the paper said.

The world is failing to draw a "clear red line" for Iran over its nuclear program, Israel's prime minister said on Sunday after a new U.N. report found Tehran had doubled its capacity at a nuclear site.

"I think that we should speak the truth -- the international community is not drawing a clear red line for Iran," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.

Quartet envoy Tony Blair met Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil in Cairo on Saturday for talks on the "difficulties" facing the Middle East peace process, MENA state news agency said.

The former British prime minister was also scheduled to hold discussions with Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr during his brief visit, it said.

A group of ultra-Orthodox Jews hurled stones at Palestinian homes in the Shuafat refugee camp of annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday, injuring one person, police said.

"About 20 Jews of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, which adjoins Shuafat, threw stones at Palestinian homes, slightly injuring the head of a resident of the camp," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.