Israeli military prosecutors have filed charges against three soldiers for alleged theft from Palestinians, and related offences, during last summer's Gaza war, the military said on Monday.

They were the first indictments relating to the 50-day "Operation Protective Edge", the subject of a United Nations enquiry which is to report its findings shortly.

Israeli authorities invited tenders on Monday for the construction of 77 homes in settlement neighborhoods of annexed east Jerusalem, settlement watchdog Peace Now said.

Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran told Agence France Presse it was the first such announcement in east Jerusalem since a March 17 general election win by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party.

Israel's military said it launched an airstrike on its border with Syria on Sunday evening after spotting militants carrying a bomb.

A military statement said the army launched the strike after troops saw "a group of armed terrorists" approach the border with an explosive that could target Israeli troops.

President Reuven Rivlin met Armenian community leaders Sunday on the centenary of the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians, the first time an Israeli head of state has marked the killings.

Israel does not recognize the slaughter of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman forces between 1915 and 1917 as "genocide."

Israel said Sunday it planned to airlift 25 infants from quake-hit Nepal born to surrogate mothers, along with their Israeli parents, most of them homosexual couples.

Officials said Israel was sending a military delegation to offer aid and help repatriate its citizens from Nepal following the quake that has claimed more than 2,500 lives.

Israeli police announced Sunday they had arrested a Palestinian suspected of deliberately ramming his car into three police officers in east Jerusalem following a day of clashes and deadly violence.

The suspect, a resident of Shuafat refugee camp in the city's annexed Arab eastern sector, is believed to have rammed the officers on a road in Al-Tur on the Mount of Olives late on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was closer to forming a new coalition Sunday after the head of the far-right Jewish Home party relinquished his demand for the foreign ministry, political sources said.

Netanyahu, whose Likud party won a surprise victory in a March 17 election, has until May 6 to piece together a new government, after receiving a 14-day extension last week.

Controversial reports surfaced on Saturday over an alleged Israeli airstrike on Hizbullah and Syrian military posts in the strategic Qalamoun region.

Al-Arabiya's Al-Hadath TV channel reported on Saturday that Israel targeted overnight a missile depot in the region.

Hizbullah has allegedly constructed a runway that consists of a single unpaved strip with a length of 670 meter and width of 20 meter in the Bekaa town of Hermel to operate its drones.

IHS Jane's Defense Weekly said in a report that the area is remote and unpopulated.

As relations between rival political factions hit rock bottom and with the prospect of a general election ever more distant, some Palestinians are left with a single voting outlet -- student elections.

The annual student council vote has all the flavour of a general election, pitting Fatah and Hamas, the two main political blocs, against each other.