Israeli aircraft carried out a series of airstrikes at militant sites in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, the first such raids since a shaky cease-fire ended the war with Hamas last month.

The airstrikes targeted facilities used by Hamas militants for meetings to plan attacks, the Israeli military said, blaming the group for any act of violence emanating from Gaza. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Israel awoke Monday with Jewish nationalist Naftali Bennett at the head of a precarious coalition government that faces stark challenges, after 12 years under right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu.

The watershed moment in Israeli politics saw an ideologically disparate eight-party bloc, ranging from right to left to Arab Islamic conservatives, band together to unseat the bombastic veteran known as Bibi by a wafer-thin margin of 60 votes to 59 in parliament on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated the new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and expressed hope for "constructive" cooperation after an alliance of parties ousted Benjamin Netanyahu.

The outgoing chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran's nuclear program and a military scientist.

The comments by Yossi Cohen, speaking to Israel's Channel 12 investigative program "Uvda" in a segment aired Thursday night, offered an extraordinary debriefing by the head of the typically secretive agency in what appears to be the final days of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rule.

Three Palestinians were killed early Thursday by special Israeli forces who were on an arrest mission in the northern West Bank, sources on both sides said.

One of the Palestinians killed was suspected of having carried out a shooting attack against Israeli soldiers, an Israeli security official said. 

The Israeli parliament will hold a confidence vote Sunday on a coalition aiming to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 12 consecutive years in power, speaker Yariv Levin said Tuesday.

Last month's Israeli-Palestinian violence triggered "uncomfortable conversations" between business partners in Israel and the United Arab Emirates just months after the countries normalised ties, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem told AFP.

The UN Security Council was due to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday amid a flurry of urgent diplomacy aimed at stemming Israel air strikes that have killed more than 200 Palestinians.

U.N. Security Council diplomats and Muslim foreign ministers convened emergency weekend meetings to demand a stop to civilian bloodshed as Israeli warplanes carried out the deadliest single attacks in nearly a week of Hamas rocket barrages and Israeli airstrikes.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday condemned the violence and "despicable rhetoric" that marked several weekend protests throughout the country, after clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters in Montreal.