The Israeli PM’s claim that his country won a “great military and political” victory over Hamas in the latest round of fighting in the Gaza Strip has met with scepticism from many of his people, according to a poll.

Israeli aircraft have fired two missiles at a 12-storey apartment block in Gaza City, collapsing the building, sending a huge fireball into the sky and wounding at least 22 people, including 11 children, witnesses and Palestinian officials said.

A 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire has begun to allow civilians in Gaza to receive aid and evacuate to safer areas.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told US secretary of state John Kerry that Israel will begin a 12-hour pause in Gaza hostilities starting at 7am Israeli time today (5am Irish time), a US official said last night.

The UN chief and the US secretary of state are heading to Cairo to try to end two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza which has killed at least 500 Palestinians and 20 Israelis and displaced tens of thousands of people.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas group claimed it had kidnapped an Israeli soldier last night, prompting celebrations in the streets of Gaza City.

Israel has widened its air assault against the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers, hitting a mosque it said was hiding rockets, as Palestinians said the death toll from the five-day offensive had risen above 125.

Israel dramatically escalated its aerial assault targeting hundreds of Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip yesterday.

The Israeli army has intensified its offensive on the Gaza Strip, striking Hamas sites and killing at least 14 people on the second day of a military operation.

Israel’s prime minister has said that three teenagers missing from the West Bank were taken by a terror group.

Israeli war planes have unleashed airstrikes against Syrian army targets in response to a roadside bombing in the Golan Heights that wounded four soldiers.

Israel has freed 26 Palestinian prisoners, the second of four batches to be released as part of a deal that set in motion the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Israel and the US have held a joint missile test over the Mediterranean, a display of military force as the Syria crisis rumbles on.

Egyptian helicopters have fired on a meeting of suspected militants in the Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 12 people as authorities stepped up their attacks following an Israeli drone strike in the region.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he has successfully undergone hernia surgery.

Syrian president Bashar Assad has been quoted by a Lebanese TV station as saying a shipment of Russian air defence missiles has arrived in his country.

Fears grew of a foreign-fed arms race in Syria as European Union countries decided they could provide weapons to the rebels and Russia disclosed that it has signed a contract to provide Syria with sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles.

A senior Israeli military intelligence official has claimed Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons last month in his battle against insurgent groups.

Gaza militants have fired rockets at Israel today, defying the Israeli military’s warning that it will not tolerate renewed attacks on the country’s south.

An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza, medical officials said, apparently an attack on a top militant that brought a three-storey home crashing down.

Lifting a nearly 25-year veil of secrecy, Israel acknowledged today that it killed the deputy of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a 1988 seaborne raid in Tunisia.

IRAN said yesterday it had successfully test fired what it described as two long-range missiles, flexing its military muscle in the face of mounting Western pressure over its nuclear programme.

ISRAEL said yesterday it was rethinking its threat to bar foreign journalists from entering the country for 10 years if they board a new aid flotilla that plans to challenge the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

AN Israeli cabinet minister has called off a visit to Britain because of concerns he could be arrested on suspicion of committing war crimes, a spokesman said yesterday, becoming the latest Israeli official affected by a Palestinian legal campaign in Britain.

An Israeli Cabinet minister has called off a visit to Britain because of concerns he could be arrested on suspicion of committing war crimes.

The new commander of the Israeli army will be reserve general Gabi Ashkenazi, the government said today.

Israelis would vote Ehud Olmert out of office if elections were held now, polls indicated today, as the defiant prime minister defended his performance in the Lebanon war and lashed out at his critics.

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has agreed to delay the pull-out from the Gaza Strip by three weeks, ostensibly to avoid a conflict with a Jewish period of mourning.

ARMED Palestinian militants shut down a government building in the West Bank yesterday.

THE Israeli parliament gave final approval last night to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements.

Israel’s army chief has ordered troops to halt operations in the Gaza Strip and to scale them back in the West Bank.

Palestinian security forces started deploying in the northern Gaza Strip today in an effort to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli targets and stave off a threatened Israeli military offensive.

RESPONDING to growing threats of insubordination, Israel's army chief announced yesterday he'll expel officers and soldiers who refuse to participate in a planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

Jewish settlers’ leaders warned Israel’s army chief that hundreds, and possibly thousands, of soldiers could refuse to carry out orders to evacuate them from the Gaza Strip if the government went ahead with its plan to withdraw from the coastal area later this year.

Yasser Arafat has lapsed into a coma, a senior Palestinian official said today after the ailing leader was rushed into intensive care at a French military hospital following a sharp deterioration in his health.

Israeli security chiefs met today to discuss Yasser Arafat’s deteriorating health, after the 75-year-old Palestinian leader was rushed into the intensive care unit at a French military hospital.

Israel’s Shin Bet security service has tightened protection of the prime minister, MPs and parliament ahead of next week’s crucial vote on a Gaza withdrawal.

A preliminary report presented to Israel’s army chief today said it could not be proven that a platoon commander repeatedly shot an injured 13-year-old Palestinian girl.

The Israeli army believes that al-Qaida carried out three car bombings in Egyptian resorts last week that killed at least 34 people.

ISRAEL’S top military prosecutor has opened an investigation into a platoon commander who soldiers accuse of emptying an ammunition clip into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl to ensure she was dead.

Israel’s top military prosecutor has opened an investigation into a platoon commander whom soldiers accuse of emptying an ammunition clip into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl to ensure she was dead.

DESPITE a massive Israeli offensive to prevent rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinian militants fired two rockets yesterday at the Israeli town of Sderot, as fighting killed at least six Palestinians.

Starting the fifth day of Israel’s largest offensive in Gaza in four years of conflict, army commanders were today talking of a weeks-long operation, while officials looked even further ahead – to Israel’s planned evacuation of settlements from Gaza next year.

A CAR bomb killed a suspected Hamas military chief in Damascus yesterday.