Israeli officials have said that the Syrian protesters who approached the border with Israel yesterday leading to gunfire were encouraged to do so by President Bashar Assad.

Danny Ayalon, the Deputy Foreign Minister, wrote on his Facebook page that President Assad was "using Palestinians in Syria as cannon fodder".

After 22 years of military involvement in the region, Israeli troops left Lebanon and made way for United Nations peacekeepers in armoured cars.

Some 1,000 Israeli soldiers had lost their lives there in the past two decades (the fate of others, like IAF navigator Ron Arad, remains unknown) making the farewell more than a little bittersweet.

Twelve years later, two of Israel's longest-serving statesmen are still at it, with Binyamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister and Ehud Barak his coalition partner and Defence Minister, now of the new Independence Party.

Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak has met Foreign Minister William Hague in London to discuss an “urgent return to negotiations.”

Speaking after the meeting last night, Mr Hague said: “I had a constructive wide-ranging meeting with Defence Minister Barak. I underlined that the UK unreservedly condemns the murder of the family in Itamar on March 11.”

In a rare move, the Population and Immigration Authority will press charges against the wife of Defence Minister Ehud Barak over allegations that she employed an illegal foreign worker as a cleaner at their home in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s voting system is prone to inconclusive outcomes – unsurprising in a country brimming with different opinions and outlooks.

The 2009 vote was already beset by controversy, called as it was after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to step down because of a criminal investigation.

The Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, who took over from his as party leader after winning primary elections, but announced in October that she had been unable to form a coalition, prompting President Shimon Peres to call the election.

Rarely does political discourse become more venomous than when it turns its attention to a high-profile apostate. It is no surprise, therefore, that erstwhile comrades have erupted in a volcano of vitriol at Defence Minister Ehud Barak's decision to leave the Labour Party to form Atzmaut, a party Barak pointedly described as "centrist, Zionist and democratic" in notable contrast, he alleged, to the "constant drift to the left and again to the left" of Labour.

Ehud Barak and four other former members of Israel’s Labour faction have announced they are to form a new centrist political party.

Mr Barak, who currently serves as defence minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government and was Israel’s 10th prime minister, revealed the creation of the “Independence” party in an open letter to parliament.

The letter said: "The new independent faction will be a centrist Zionist and democratic faction and will advance these ideas in the Knesset and the coalition, and in the future in public.”

The current political status of the two Ehuds hardly seems comparable. Defence Minister Ehud Barak was in Washington this week, conferring with senior figures in the Obama administration and then attending more high-level meetings at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on the other hand, spent most of his week hunkered down with his lawyers, preparing for another series of damning testimonies by a former secretary on his double-billing speaking fees in the ongoing corruption case against him.

Israeli police are investigating after a plan to undermine IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, and ensure OC Southern Command Major General Yoav Galant replaced him, was unveiled on Channel Two news on Friday night.

The "Galant Document" caused a public uproar and deep embarrassment in the IDF's upper echelons. Lt-Gen Ashkenazi ends his term in February 2011 and the question of his successor has been the subject of intense speculation and rivalry.

Senior Israeli officials have acknowledged that the chances of a resumption of high-level talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the near future are very slim.

US envoy George Mitchell, who made yet another trip to the region this week, also played down expectations.

No new strategic agreements or arms deals were signed during Defence Minister Ehud Barak’s visit to Ankara on Sunday; he did not even get to meet the prime minister.

Still, the half-day trip was described as “very positive”. These days, any diplomatic contact between Israel and Turkey that does not end acrimoniously is seen as a definite success.

Senior Israeli security officials are warning of a drastic increase in the number of right-wing extremists prepared to use violent means to stop any attempt to dismantle settlements.

Labour Chair and Defence Minister Ehud Barak added a new title on Monday: Labour parliamentary faction leader. Mr Barak had to assume the position after his last loyal back-bencher announced he was resigning from the post.

MK Daniel Ben-Simon said he was resigning because “Labour has not fulfilled its diplomatic goals and does not belong in the coalition”.