Israeli military

Israel's military said it attacked targets of the Islamist group Hamas in southern Lebanon and stepped up strikes on the Gaza Strip after yesterday's rocket attacks on Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of the security cabinet, and the United Nations called on all parties to exercise restraint.

Israel launched rare strikes in southern Lebanon early Friday and pressed on with bombing targets in the Gaza Strip, marking a widening escalation in the region following violence this week at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site.

Israeli police stormed into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City early Wednesday, firing stun grenades at Palestinian youths who hurled firecrackers at them in a burst of violence during a sensitive holiday season. Palestinian militants in Gaza responded with rocket fire on southern Israel, prompting repeated Israeli airstrikes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to back down on Wednesday, saying his government has no intention of returning to four abandoned settlements in the occupied West Bank under a law that was repealed by parliament this week.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including a man claimed by an armed group as a member, during a confrontation that erupted early Monday when troops entered a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said.

The Israeli military on Saturday said it shot down three unmanned aircraft launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah heading toward an area where an Israeli gas platform was recently installed in the Mediterranean Sea.

The United Nations said on June 24 it found that Israeli forces fired the shot that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, with Israel swiftly branding the UN's findings unfounded.

Two Palestinians, one a teenager, were killed in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, hours after police apprehended two Palestinian men suspected of killing three Israelis last week.

Four Syrian soldiers were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli air strike, a Syrian military source told state news agency SANA on Wednesday.

"The Israeli enemy carried out an air assault at dawn... targeting several positions around Damascus," the military source said.

Israeli tanks fired into southern Lebanon early Monday in response to a rocket fired from the country, the Israeli military said.