Israel’s former president has come out against a bill floated by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would define Israel as “the Jewish state”.

ENGLAND: A master blender is to have his tastebuds insured by a leading tea company for £1m (€1.26m).

Three Israeli suspects over the killing of a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and burned to death last week have confessed, an official said.

Israel’s parliament has voted to dissolve itself ahead of early national elections set for January 2013.

THE Vatican defended the Pope from a growing chorus of Israeli critics who accused the German-born Benedict XVI of failing to express enough remorse for the Holocaust – a controversy that threatened to eclipse a papal pilgrimage aimed at building bridges between faiths.

Shimon Peres leads by a wide margin after first round of presidential voting in Israel today, giving him the edge in the second round to take place this afternoon.

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke late yesterday triggered a law of succession granting his leadership duties to his deputy.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today failed to win parliamentary approval for his nomination of new Cabinet ministers.

Israel’s parliament today opens what is expected to be a stormy winter session with a warning from the speaker that passions over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s planned Gaza pullout next year could boil over into fistfights, and the government itself could fall.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s cabinet today banned a UN fact-finding mission into the battle at the Jenin refugee camp.