Further embarrassment for PM as household spending increases by 80 per cent in just three years

The Hamas government in Gaza has proclaimed as a success its month-long campaign to crackdown on collaborators with Israel, adding that those that admitted to the charge are now enjoying the guarantees offered by the Islamist government at the beginning of the programme.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, is facing embarrassment after it was revealed that he asked for a bedroom to be specially fitted to the plane he used to travel to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral last month.

Israel’s right wing Economy Minister Naftali Bennett says he plans to submit a plan to his colleagues on reviewing security for Jews in the West Bank after claiming that the situation has deteriorated in recent months.

AQ Khan, the mastermind of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, has denied any involvement in similar programmes in North Korea and Iran, insisting that the two states have acquired any knowledge in the field from Western sources.

Hope earlier in the week that a decision to freeze the construction of new Israeli settler homes in the occupied West Bank could renew the moribund peace process were dealt a blow earlier today when it transpired that permission had been granted to build nearly 300 new houses close to the Palestinian administrative capital, Ramallah.

Chairs were thrown at a group of Jews touring the Temple Mount, according to police

Move was key demand of Palestinians as precursor to any renewed peace talks

The latest chapter in the saga in the case of 'Prisoner X' - the former Mossad agent who killed himself in Israel's highest security prison - has revealed that he botched a mission to recover the bodies of three Israeli servicemen from Lebanon, a move that led to the imprisonment one of the Jewish state's prized security assets.