A leading Israeli human rights group announced Wednesday it was giving up taking complaints over soldiers' conduct to the military, after years of going through official channels brought few prosecutions.

B'Tselem, which campaigns against Israel's occupation of the West Bank, said it had been providing information to the Military Advocate General Corps about alleged abuses for 25 years, but had concluded it was increasingly a "whitewash mechanism."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's travel expenses came under fresh scrutiny on Tuesday with the release of an official report into alleged overcharging and conflict of interest.

The state comptroller's report covers 2003-05, when Netanyahu was finance minister, and concerns five foreign trips, some with his wife and children, Israeli media reported.

Negotiations to bring a hardline nationalist party into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition have reached a "dead end", the head of the party said Monday.

Netanyahu, however, said talks were continuing and expressed confidence that a deal with former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu would be reached.

A Palestinian woman tried to stab an Israeli border policeman at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem on Monday and was shot dead, Israeli police said.

No injuries were reported among the police in the incident at the Biddu checkpoint. Border police fired in the air before shooting her when she continued to move toward them with a knife, authorities said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought on Sunday to ease concerns over the expected entrance of a hardline nationalist party into his coalition, saying his government would still seek peace with the Palestinians.

Avigdor Lieberman, who is set to become Israel's minister of defense, is a political veteran known for his anti-Arab tirades and strident populism.

The leader of the nationalist party Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is our home) is expected to replace Moshe Yaalon, who resigned on Friday saying extremists had taken over the country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked set on Thursday to form the most right-wing government in Israeli history, with Avigdor Lieberman, a hardliner loathed by Palestinians, expected to become defense minister.

Netanyahu aides were in talks with officials of Lieberman's hawkish Yisrael Beitenu party on terms for its entry to the ruling coalition, which would boost its currently wafer-thin majority in parliament.

Israel has successfully tested a maritime missile interception system dubbed the Iron Dome of the Sea, the military announced on Wednesday.

The system, which the military said can shoot down short-range rockets similar to those fired from Gaza, successfully destroyed "several" missiles, Ariel Shir, head of operational systems in the navy, said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is close to agreeing a unity government with the main opposition leader, Israeli media said Wednesday, in a move that could help revive peace talks with the Palestinians.

The head of the rightwing Likud has reportedly been engaged in intense negotiations with Labor Party chief Isaac Herzog in recent weeks in a bid to form a government of national unity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to order on Monday at a time of tensions over the right of military officers to speak their minds.

Yaalon on Sunday delivered a speech to senior officers in which he implored them to "continue speaking your minds".