Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the UAE's Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan have spoken by phone to build on their countries' normalisation accord, Sheikh Mohammed said in a tweet Monday. 

In the call initiated by Netanyahu, the two leaders agreed that the deal signed at the White House on September 15 "opens the way to a new era of cooperation", he wrote.

The Israeli army said Friday it was holding the body of a Palestinian shot dead in a West Bank clash earlier this week, ending days of uncertainty over his fate.

After a coronavirus-related delay, Israel's navy is preparing for the long-awaited arrival of its next generation of missile boats — giving it a powerful new tool to defend its strategic natural gas industry from the threat of Hizbullah.

From scrubbing hate-filled school textbooks to a taboo-defying religious sermon, Saudi Arabia is pushing for another kind of normalisation after declining to establish formal relations with Israel -- co-existence with Jews.

Israel launched a missile strike near Syria's main northern city of Aleppo early Friday prompting air defences to respond, Syrian state media reported.

The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday it had repealed legislation imposing a boycott of Israel after the two countries struck a US-brokered deal to normalise relations.

Israeli tanks and warplanes bombed Hamas positions in Gaza Friday and the Islamists retaliated with rockets as a three-week-old flare-up showed no let-up despite international mediation efforts.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas agreed with his Israeli counterpart Thursday that an effort must be made to extend a weapon embargo on Iran, while stressing Germany still sees the landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers as the best way to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

With a current U.N. arms embargo on Iran due to expire on Oct. 18, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told reporters in Berlin an extension was needed to prevent Iran from getting "more advanced weapons systems and spreading them around the Middle East."

The Israeli army said Monday it had again hit Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight, in retaliation for incendiary balloon and rocket attacks launched from the Palestinian enclave.

Israeli tanks shelled military positions of Gaza's ruling Hamas movement early Saturday, the army and Palestinian security sources said, hours after a rocket was launched at southern Israel.