Benjamin Netanyahu

Turkey and Israel currently share a common fate. General elections were held in Israel three months ago and a new coalition in the Knesset was only last month formed - and is still ?in flux.?

Turkey, on the other hand, held its own elections on June 7 and is currently in the phase of forming a coalition government.

Swiss and Austrian investigators have launched probes into alleged spying in hotels hosting delicate Iranian nuclear talks, with Israel denying June 11 its secret services were involved.

America's top general sought to reassure Israel on June 9 of "unshakable" US military support, despite deep strains in political relations over the prospect of a US-led nuclear deal with Iran and differences over Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. 

French telecoms firm Orange said on June 5 that its decision to withdraw its brand from the Israeli market was a purely business decision, insisting: "We love Israel".

The company's chairman and chief executive Stephane Richard said an international campaign to boycott Israel in response to its decades-old occupation of the Palestinian territories had played no part in the decision.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast on June 2 that Israel risks losing "credibility" over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stance on the creation of a Palestinian state.

US defence aid to Israel is likely to increase after 2017, sources on both sides said on May 28, seeing a possible link to Washington's efforts to assuage its ally's fears over nuclear diplomacy with Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on May 26 that a nuclear-armed Iran would be "a thousand times more dangerous and more destructive" than the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, his office said.

Palestinians in the West Bank who commute to Israel to work will from May 20 be banned from riding the same buses as Israelis to return home, a defence ministry official said.

Israel and Hamas share common interests, and the Palestinian Islamists must stay in power in the Gaza Strip to prevent the enclave descending into chaos, an Israeli general was quoted as saying on May 12.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held on to his job May 6, announcing that he had hammered together a new coalition government just ahead of a midnight legal deadline.