THE three co-authors of a scathing United Nations report on Israel’s conduct during its 2008-2009 offensive in Gaza have said they stand by their work.

Israel agreed today to pull its troops out of the northern half of a village which straddles the border with Lebanon, defusing a long-standing political dispute but frightening villagers who do not want their community divided.

A Palestinian who broke into the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv trying to take hostages and demanding asylum was in Israeli custody today.

A Palestinian took hostages in the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv today after shots were fired outside in an incident that appeared to have only an indirect link to recent tensions between the two countries.

A man is holding hostages in the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv after shots were fired outside, Israeli police said today.

PRO-PALESTINIAN activists sent another boat to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip yesterday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.

Australia is to expel an Israeli diplomat after investigators said Israel was responsible for forging four Australian passports used in the killing of a Hamas operative in Dubai, it emerged today.

Israel could face calls by the United Nations Security Council to refer alleged war crimes to the International Criminal Court in The Hague after a UN council backed a controversial report.

Israel rejected UN calls to open an independent inquiry into its conduct in last winter’s Gaza Strip war and said it would launch a diplomatic offensive to block any attempt to bring its soldiers before an international war crimes tribunal.

Israel said today it would not conduct an independent inquiry into its conduct in the Gaza Strip war, rejecting a key recommendation from an explosive UN report that accused the Jewish state of war crimes.

Iran faced more world condemnation today after parliament backed the Cabinet appointment of a man wanted for the bombing of a Jewish centre in Argentina.

ISRAELI and Swedish officials have responded furiously to a Swedish newspaper article that suggested Israeli troops killed Palestinians and harvested their organs.

THE official reaction in Ireland to the Israeli offensive in Gaza was “insensitive and unhelpful”, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

POPE Benedict XVI pledged yesterday to remember the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, seeking to repair strains with Jews over one of the most sensitive issues at the start of a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

ISRAEL’S ultra-nationalist foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, pictured, was to leave yesterday on his first official trip abroad, aiming to reassure the Europeans amid rising tensions over the stalled peace process.

Egypt and Hamas are close to a deal for a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, where the death toll from the Israeli offensive exceeded 1,000, officials said.

Scores of nations began signing a treaty banning cluster bombs today in a move that supporters hope will shame the US, Russia and China and others into abandoning the weapons.