A long-time foreign policy adviser of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday ruled out the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas as a potential peace partner for Israel.

"There is no question that Hamas is part of the jihadist universe," said Dore Gold, incoming director general of the foreign ministry and former ambassador to the United Nations.

An Israeli ministerial legal committee approved Sunday a bill that could see protesters who throw stones at moving vehicles jailed for up to 10 years.

The bill, which faces a series of parliament readings before coming into effect, would amend an existing law that allows stone-throwers to be jailed for 20 years, but only if it can be proven they intended to inflict harm.

An imprisoned commander of Hamas' armed wing who is serving 67 life terms has been placed in solitary confinement for speaking to a radio station, Israel's prisons authority said Sunday.

Abdallah Barghouti gave an interview to Hamas radio using a mobile telephone "smuggled into the prison where he is being held, and has been placed in an isolation cell," said spokeswoman Sivan Weizman.

The Israeli air force carried out four strikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, eyewitnesses said, hours after a cross-border rocket attack on the Jewish state.

The planes targeted training camps belonging to militant group Islamic Jihad in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City, the witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Amnesty International accused the Islamist movement Hamas Wednesday of committing war crimes against fellow Palestinians to "settle scores" during last year's Gaza war with Israel, executing at least 23 people.

A report by the London-based rights group detailed the "brutal campaign of abductions, torture and unlawful killings against Palestinians accused of 'collaborating' with Israel" by Hamas, de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip enclave.

Egypt reopened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza for two days from Tuesday, Palestinian border officials said, for the first time since March.

Maher Abu Sabha, director of border crossings in the Gaza Strip, said traffic was permitted into Gaza only, to allow the return of Palestinians stranded in Egypt.

Palestinians on Tuesday angrily dismissed reported remarks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would like to negotiate the future annexation of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Haaretz newspaper on Tuesday quoted "an Israeli source" briefed on last week's meeting with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini as saying that Netanyahu wants to resume talks with the Palestinians, with his goal being to reach understandings on the borders of settlement blocs that Israel would annex under any peace agreement.

Moscow and Tehran have concluded talks on the delivery of Russian S-300 missiles to Iran which should take place "quite" soon, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Monday.

"The negotiations on the subject have ended in success. I estimate that the S-300 delivery will take place in quite a short time," Amir-Abdollahian said in Moscow.

Israeli police said they arrested six Palestinians and six Israelis on Monday after a confrontation at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, the scene of frequent religious tensions.

"The Palestinians were arrested while trying to prevent Jews from entering the Temple Mount," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said, using the Jewish name for the site which is sacred to both religions.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced Monday to eight months in prison for unlawfully accepting money from a U.S. supporter, capping the dramatic downfall of a man who only years earlier led the country and hoped to bring about a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Olmert was convicted in March in a retrial in Jerusalem District Court. The sentencing comes in addition to a six-year prison sentence he received last year in a separate bribery conviction, ensuring the end of the former premier's political career.