Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Ehud Barak are trying to convince their cabinet to support an attack on Iran, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday.

Citing an unnamed senior Israeli official, the newspaper said Netanyahu was working to win a majority in favor of a strike against Iran, but there is currently "a small advantage" in the cabinet for those opposed to an attack.

Palestinian leaders reacted angrily after Israel said it would build 2,000 settler homes and freeze the transfer of Palestinian tax funds to punish them for joining UNESCO.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner cabinet decided on Tuesday to speed up construction in east Jerusalem and in nearby settlements, a day after UNESCO's general assembly voted Palestine in as a full member.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a meeting of his inner cabinet on Tuesday to consider a response to UNESCO's decision to admit Palestine, officials and local media said.

Israeli media said the so-called Forum of Eight would meet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss a response to UNESCO's decision a day earlier to admit Palestine as a full member despite U.S. and Israeli objections.

U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that could be used to make nuclear arms.

The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.

The bodies of two Palestinian militants killed overnight in an Israeli raid on Gaza were found at dawn on Monday near Khan Yunis, local medics said.

The two belonged to a tiny faction known as the al-Ansar Brigades, which is understood to be close to Gaza's ruling Hamas movement.

A new Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the armed Palestinian groups in Gaza has been reached, a Palestinian source announced, after an Israeli air strike killed a Gaza militant on Sunday just hours after Islamic Jihad vowed to observe an earlier ceasefire.

“The Palestinian factions have been informed that the truce with Israel will be maintained though a new ceasefire effective 10:00 pm,” the source said, requesting anonymity.

A Tel Aviv court on Sunday jailed a young Israeli woman for four-and-a-half years for spying and leaking classified military documents to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, officials said.

A transcript of Sunday's ruling obtained by Agence France Presse said Anat Kam was given 45 days to appeal the sentence, which comes on top of the time she had already spent under house arrest since December 2009.

Activists and supporters angered over the spiraling cost of living in Israel are to take to the streets of several cities on Saturday following an eight-week break.

The largest protest is expected to take place in Tel Aviv from 9:00 pm (19:00 GMT) under the rallying call of "Return to the Streets", organizers said.

Israeli air raids killed seven Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, prompting a massive barrage of retaliatory rocket fire, officials said.

Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for Gaza's emergency services, said five members of the al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad's armed wing, were killed and three critically wounded in a first Israeli attack.

Hamas could be swept out of power by the Arab Spring if the Palestinian Authority is able to show "tangible" results from peace negotiations with Israel, a top U.S. diplomat said Thursday.

"The Palestinians are no more immune to the currents of change and demand for democratization, reform and freedom than any of the other people in the region," said Ambassador David Hale, the U.S. envoy for Middle East Peace.