The Israeli army’s deputy chief of staff, Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh, expressed fears on Tuesday that the Syrian regime could transfer to Hizbullah advanced weaponry that it is still in control of.

"The missile, rocket and chemical capabilities are remarkably still under the control of the current regime," The Jerusalem Post quoted Naveh as telling a defense conference.

World powers and Iran hope to lay the groundwork for an end to the long-running crisis over Tehran's nuclear program in talks in Baghdad on Wednesday, but the challenges are immense.

The meeting with the P5+1 -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- comes at a time of unprecedented tensions more than three years since Barack Obama became U.S. president promising a new dawn in relations.

Palestinian security forces arrested 10 members of the Islamic Jihad in the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, a local leader of the radical movement said.

Ghassan Sa'adi, head of the Islamic Jihad in the Jenin refugee camp, located in the occupied West Bank, told Agence France Presse he did not know why they had been detained.

Israeli ministers were holding a special cabinet meeting at Ammunition Hill on Sunday to celebrate Jerusalem Day when the Jewish state captured the Arab eastern sector 45 years ago during the Six-Day War.

Celebrations were lined up throughout the day with formal ceremonies, parties and the annual flag march through east Jerusalem to mark the "reunification" of the city which took place after the 1967 Middle East war.

Austria's Defense Minister Norbert Darabos has launched an attack on Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, describing him as "unbearable" in an interview due to appear on Sunday.

Darabos told the Sunday edition of Die Presse newspaper that Lieberman was "unbearable as a member of the Israeli government", adding that he believed the threat of Israeli military strikes against Iran was "superfluous".

Dozens of Palestinian olive trees and grape vines were destroyed and anti-Arab graffiti was daubed in groves of the West Bank village of Beit Omar, residents said on Saturday.

The villagers said the attack had taken place on Friday night or early Saturday and blamed it on Jewish settlers of nearby Bat Ayin settlement, which lies north of the town of Hebron.

Iran is looking to deceive the world over its nuclear program in talks with the P5+1 group of world powers, Israel premier Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday after talks with Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

"It looks as though they see the talks as another opportunity to delay and deceive and buy time, pretty much as North Korea did for many years," he said, just days ahead of the next round of negotiations which are to take place in Baghdad on May 23.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday he hopes to attend this summer's Olympic Games in London but that the British authorities were reluctant to allow him, state media reported.

"I would like to be beside the Iranian athletes at the Olympic Games in London to support them, but (the British) have issues with my presence," Ahmadinejad said, without offering further explanation.

Former commander of Israel’s Air Forces warned on Thursday that his country’s air superiority is increasingly undermined by the proliferation of sophisticated surface-to-air missile systems throughout the region – in Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula.

“The Israeli Air Force needs to be ready to fly in places where there is a threat to its superiority,” outgoing Air Force Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan told The Jerusalem Post.

An Israeli tank shell fired into the Gaza Strip on Thursday wounded seven Palestinians, leaving two of them in critical condition, Palestinian medical officials told AFP.

The shell hit near the Karni crossing east of Gaza City, according to the medics.