Israel

"There is an opportunity today... We can reach an agreement, but we will not conclude it ourselves, as Lebanon and Israel must decide to do so," Hochstein said on Tuesday in an interview with Lebanese MTV local TV channel. The US official arrived in Beirut on Tuesday to look into ways to resume talks over Lebanese-Israeli maritime border demarcation, Xinhua news agency reported.

On Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the deputy attorney general was "looking quickly into" the claims, while the Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said he would begin an official state inquiry. The efforts reflect Israel's most significant interventions in the NSO controversy since the Israeli firm began attracting global scrutiny nearly six years ago, the report said.

The two leaders on Sunday discussed "regional challenges" and in particular the "growing Iranian aggression, and the steps to block the Iranian nuclear program," it added. Bennett congratulated Biden on the operation to kill the IS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, noting that "the world is now a safer place". Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.

Gantz, who landed in Manama on Wednesday for the first visit of an Israeli Defence Minister, met Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa in the royal palace, Gantz's office said in a statement. During the meeting on Thursday, Gantz and his Bahraini counterpart Abdullah Bin Hassan Al Noaimi signed a security memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two countries, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

The remarks were made at the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, in response to a no-confidence motion over Gantz's meetings with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in recent months, Xinhua news agency reported. In late December of 2021, Gantz and Abbas met at Gantz's home in the city of Rosh Ha'Ayin in central Israel to discuss economic and security issues.

 Israel on Wednesday signed the Artemis Accords and joined the US-led programme to land human beings on the Moon by 2025 and later on Mars, Israel Space Agency (ISA) said on Wednesday. The agreement, signed by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and ISA Director-General Uri Oron, sets out principles for cooperation in space exploration and civil use of the Moon, Mars, comets and asteroids for peaceful purposes, ISA added.

The resolution commends those member states that have actively engaged in preserving those sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labour camps, killing sites and prisons during the Holocaust, as well as similar places operated by Nazi-allied regimes, their accomplices or auxiliaries.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on Twitter that he "strongly condemn" the drone attack by the Iranian-backed Houthis near Abu Dhabi's airport, which killed at least three people and injured six, Xinhua news agency reported. "Israel stands with the UAE. I stand with (Crown Prince) Mohammed bin Zayed. The world should stand against terrorists," Bennett tweeted.

Currently vaccines are available in the country for adults, and children aged five and above. "In Israel vaccines are available now for everybody aged five and over. I believe by April this year it will be expanded for any age above six months," Dr Asher Shalmon, the Health Ministry's director for international relations, said in a briefing to foreign policymakers and journalists this week.

During a meeting in Cairo on Monday, the Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Jordan, the Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs, and the Heads of the three countries' intelligence services held talks to coordinate positions and vision on how to follow-up on the results of the tripartite summit held in Cairo in September, according to a statement released by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.