Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sent a letter to Egypt's newly elected President Mohamed Morsi, urging him to uphold a peace treaty between the two countries, a source told AFP on Sunday.

The letter, first reported by Israeli daily Haaretz on Sunday morning, "stressed Israel's desire to continue cooperation and to strengthen the peace," an Israeli source said on condition of anonymity.

Ex-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, a former soldier, spy and statesman, has died at the age of 96, Israeli officials announced on Saturday.

"Yitzhak Shamir has left us," current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

A planned meeting on Sunday between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's vice prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, has been called off, a senior Palestinian official said.

"The meeting between president Abbas and Shaul Mofaz has been postponed to a later date," the official in the West Bank city of Ramallah told Agence France Presse on Saturday, without giving a reason or a new date.

Residents of Israel's Ulpana settlement outpost neighborhood in the West Bank began evacuating their homes on Tuesday after a court ruled their homes illegal and ordered them razed.

The evacuation was proceeding peacefully, with 15 of the neighborhood’s 30 families moving their possessions to a nearby temporary neighborhood -- also in the West Bank -- with help from defense ministry workers.

Israeli officials asked visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin to exert efforts to stop Syrian biological and chemical weapons from falling into the hands of Hizbullah, a senior Israeli diplomatic source said.

"We asked Putin for Russia to work more actively to preserve stability in Syria, to prevent biological and chemical weapons from falling into the hands of Hizbullah or other terror groups," the source told Israeli daily Haaretz.

Israel's prime minister said his country respects the democratic election of Islamist Mohamed Morsi as Egypt's president on Sunday and wants to cooperate with the new government in Cairo.

Israel's state watchdog on Wednesday criticized a number of cabinet members in a report on the country's worst ever fire that killed 44 people as it swept through a northern forest in late 2010.

The fire raged through the Carmel forest near the Mediterranean port city of Haifa for four days, destroying millions of trees and hundreds of homes.

Envoys from the Middle East Quartet met in Brussels on Friday amid calls from the Palestinians to step up action to halt continuing Israeli settlement activity.

Officials from the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia gathered "to consult as they routinely do over the phone as well", said a spokesman for EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton.

A damning report that slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the 2010 flotilla raid has raised fears over how a strike on Iran would be managed, press reports said on Thursday.

The 153-page report by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss dominated the headlines.

Israel's state watchdog on Wednesday sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of a 2010 military raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla which left nine Turkish nationals dead.

"In the process of decision making, which was led by the prime minister and under his responsibility, regarding the handling of the (flotilla), there were significant shortcomings," said a report published by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.