Israel has resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip, ending a self-declared, seven-hour ceasefire that was in effect for much of the day.

Israeli police have clashed with several hundred Palestinians following reports that an Arab teenager was kidnapped and a body found in a Jerusalem forest.

A pipe bomb believed to have been planted by Palestinian militants exploded on board a bus moments after passengers had left, in the most serious attack inside Israel in more than a year.

A nine-year-old Jewish girl has been shot and seriously injured while playing outside in the West Bank, Israeli police said today.

Israeli police have entered Jerusalem’s holiest site to disperse hundreds of Palestinians who were throwing rocks.

An American man who was in Israel for a Jewish work and study programme shot a chef dead at a Red Sea hotel and then killed himself in a shoot-out with Israeli commandos, police said.

A young American opened fire at a hotel in the Red Sea resort city of Eilat today, killing one person before police shot him dead.

Israeli forces are on high alert ahead of expected mass demonstrations as Palestinians prepared for a day of marches throughout the region.

A Palestinian woman was imprisoned for nine years in a bathroom by her father, beaten, barely fed and only let out at night, police said.

Palestinian police say they have freed a young woman whose father kept her locked in the bathroom of their home in the West Bank for about nine years.

FORBES magazine has named German Chancellor Angela Merkel the world’s most powerful woman, calling her the “undisputed” leader of the EU and head of its only “real global economy”.

SOME 200 pro-Palestinian activists have been barred from leaving foreign airports for Israel, where authorities are poised to deport others who manage to fly in, Israeli police said.

JIM STYNES has taken a major step towards making what seemed an improbable recovery from cancer by having his last brain tumour removed in Melbourne.

ISRAELI troops clashed with Arab protesters along three hostile borders, including the frontier with Syria, leaving 16 people dead and dozens more wounded in an unprecedented wave of demonstrations marking a Palestinian day of mourning for their defeat at Israel’s hands in 1948.

An inferno that has raged for four days in a northern Israeli forest is under control, fire chiefs said today.

The chief executive of US giant Kraft will sound out major shareholders in London this week over its potential takeover of Dairy Milk maker Cadbury.

The chairman of confectioner Cadbury PLC said that Kraft Foods Inc undervalued his company in a takeover offer, and he dismissed the suitor as a "low-growth conglomerate".

HUNDREDS of police officers scoured the streets of Tel Aviv yesterday in a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed two people at a youth club in the worst ever attack on homosexuals in Israel.

Hundreds of police officers scoured the streets of Tel Aviv today in a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed two people at a youth club in the worst ever attack on homosexuals in Israel.

Palestinian militants fired a Russian-made rocket into southern Israel today, police said, signalling a possible escalation by armed groups in the Gaza Strip.

An eight-year-old Israeli boy spent six hours floating in the Dead Sea alone at night after his father left him there by accident during a family trip, police said.

Hundreds of Israeli police dragged squatters from the ruins of a Jewish settlement today, ending a three-day stand-off between the government and Jewish settlers trying to re-establish the settlement.

The supreme leader of Iran has called on Islamic nations to retaliate against Israel over excavations being carried out near a hotly disputed holy site in Jerusalem.

Police today scuffled with an Israeli Islamic leader and several of his followers near a hotly disputed holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem where Muslims have been protesting excavations and repairs.

Israeli police today evacuated dozens of Jewish squatters who took over a Palestinian home in the West Bank city of Hebron, in an important first test for Israel’s new government and its plans to uproot tens of thousands of settlers.

ELITE police commandos chased down a group of Palestinians racing toward central Israel in a van packed with explosives yesterday, foiling a potentially devastating bombing just days before national elections.

A British army agent who claims soldiers plotted with terrorists is facing a new jail threat if he reveals details of his secret life, it emerged tonight.

A British army agent facing jail for claiming soldiers plotted with terrorist murderers is seeking political asylum in the United States, it emerged tonight.

A FORMER spy who infiltrated the IRA went to the west Belfast home of the man who denies being British Army agent Stakeknife yesterday, in a bid to force him into court.

A former spy who infiltrated the IRA went to the west Belfast home of the man who denies being British Army agent Stakenife today in a bid to force him into court.

Britain's Metropolitan Police commissioner John Stevens has been ordered to appear at the High Court in London as a key witness in a case involving Britain’s former top anti-terrorist agents in Northern Ireland, it emerged tonight.