Representatives of Israel's growing social protest movement have called for massive demonstrations on Saturday night to further press their calls for a reduction in the cost of living.

"All the people who are involved in this wave of protests have called for mass demonstrations against the government this Saturday night in Tel Aviv and other cities," protest leader Stav Shafir told Agence France Presse.

An Israeli ex-minister known for his close ties to Hosni Mubarak said on Wednesday he had offered the former president medical treatment in Israel during a meeting before the Egyptian uprising.

Speaking to Israeli military radio, Binyamin Ben Eliezer said he made the offer to Mubarak during a meeting attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Israel is willing to begin new peace talks using the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations, if the Palestinians drop their U.N. membership bid, an Israeli government official confirmed on Tuesday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official confirmed that Israel has been working with Washington and members of the international peace-making Quartet to draw up a new framework that could re-launch stalled talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Monday that the Israeli army had the right to defend itself during the border clash with Lebanon at Wazzani earlier on Monday, reported the Jerusalem Post.

He told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: "The soldiers behaved like they were supposed to.”

Dozens of demonstrators occupied the roof of the Tel Aviv stock exchange on Thursday morning, Israeli military radio reported, as protests over the high cost of living spread throughout Israel.

Protesters scaled the building a day after the powerful Histadrut labor union threw its support behind the demonstrators, who have set up tent cities across Israel to protest the high cost of housing.

Foreign journalists on Friday spoke of their distress after being asked to remove their bras for a security check before being allowed into the offices of Israel's prime minister.

The three women were told by security personnel to undress and take off their bras for x-ray in two separate incidents at the Jerusalem offices of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he hopes the Arab Spring will result in democracies in the Arab world, warning that an “Iranian-style dictatorship” would harm revolutions in the region.

"If there's genuine democracy in the Arab world, in the Arab countries, then there will be genuine peace. Because a genuine democracy reflects the desires of the people, and most people Arabs, Jews, anyone they don't want their sons and daughters dying on battlefields," Netanyahu told al-Arabiya satellite channel in an interview aired Thursday evening.

Israel is willing to hold peace talks with the Palestinians immediately, in Jerusalem or even Ramallah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in excerpts of an interview released on Wednesday.

Speaking to Arabic-language television station al-Arabiya, Netanyahu also denied that Israel wanted to see Syrian President Bashar Assad remain in power, and acknowledged that he had held secret peace talks with Damascus in the past.

The United States said Thursday that it disagreed with the Arab League after it said it would submit a request for recognition of a Palestinian state to the United Nations.

"We do not believe attempts to resolve final status issues in international bodies like the United Nations are able to bring about the enduring peace, which both the parties and the United States seek," the State Department said in a written statement.

Israel's parliament was poised on Monday to vote on a law that would effectively ban Israelis from calling for boycotts of any part of the Jewish state or its settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Activists and intellectuals have criticized the controversial bill, accusing the MPs behind it of stifling free speech and compromising Israel's democracy.