For the first time since left-wing activists began staging weekly protests against house evictions in the northeast Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a contingent of right-wing activists has announced plans to hold a counter-protest during this week’s Friday demonstration.

The Goldstone report is a serious threat to Israel that will "continue to haunt us and take away our legitimacy," outgoing Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told Haaretz in an interview.

Friday marks the three-month deadline set by the United Nations General Assembly for issuing its own report on the Israel-Hamas fighting in Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to the release of hundreds of Fatah prisoners as part of efforts backed by the United States and Egypt to jump-start the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Swedish Jews are upset about comments made this week by the mayor of Malmo, who said anti-Semitism and Zionism were both forms of "unacceptable extremism," and urged local Jews to disassociate themselves from Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas claimed on Friday that Israeli agents assassinated one of the Islamist group's veteran operatives in a killing allegedly carried out last week in , and vowed to retaliate.

Human Rights Watch rejected a Hamas claim that the Palestinians did not target Israeli civilians with rockets during the Gaza war.

Jewish groups say the liked what they heard in President Obama's first State of the Union address but are reserving final judgment until they hear more specifics.

According to the report, Israel used the more than 8,000 rocket attacks on its civilians merely as a pretext, an excuse, a cover for the real purpose of Operation Cast Lead, which was to target innocent Palestinian civilians - children, women, the elderly - for death.

Speaking on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel’s President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder have highlighted the dangers posed by the Iranian regime.