Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Sunday of "strong" ties with the United States ahead of a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, despite deep disagreement over the nuclear accord with Iran.

"This visit expresses the strong relations between Israel and our ally the U.S.," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Israeli forces demolished dozens of structures including a school in the northern West Bank this week, leaving 10 families homeless, the U.N. said on Friday.

The demolitions took place on Wednesday in the village of Khirbet Tana, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli army is to return West Bank land it requisitioned nearly 40 years ago to its Palestinian owners in what a human rights group called an "extremely unusual" move.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din said that the army had taken the decision to surrender control of the land after it petitioned the High Court late last year.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will visit Israel and the West Bank next week, the White House said Wednesday -- a rare trip amid fears about escalating political violence.

"The Vice President and (his wife) Dr. (Jill) Biden will travel to Jerusalem and Ramallah" on March 8, the White House said in a statement.

A number of artillery shells fired by Israel during military maneuvers landed by the occupied Shebaa Farms in the South, reported the National News Agency on Wednesday.

It said that “so far” 15 shells landed on the border near the occupied region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he wants to expel to Gaza the families of Palestinian attackers who help in assaults as he came under increasing pressure over a five-month wave of violence.

Netanyahu asked the attorney general to examine the possibility of carrying out such expulsions, his office said, while rights groups immediately denounced the move.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Thursday he was delaying a scheduled visit to Australia next month to instead hold talks in Russia that are likely to focus on Syria.

"Due to regional developments which have occurred in the Middle East, and the need for a meeting between the two presidents in Moscow, President Rivlin has been forced to postpone his planned visit to Australia", Rivlin's office said.

Israel on Thursday denounced an Iranian decision to give thousands of dollars to relatives of Palestinians killed during Israeli-Palestinian violence that has soared in recent months.

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said Wednesday that Tehran would offer $7,000 to the families of each Palestinian killed in what he called the "Jerusalem intifada".

An Israeli military officer was killed Wednesday when fellow soldiers accidentally shot him while opening fire at a Palestinian who tried to stab him in the occupied West Bank, officials said.

The Palestinian was moderately wounded in the incident at the Gush Etzion junction, a major intersection near a large bloc of Israeli settlements.

Israel's defense minister has accused Palestinians of not mourning their dead as much as Jews, wading into a debate on Palestinian grief amid a wave of violence that has left more than 200 dead on both sides.

The controversy erupted two weeks ago when a presenter on Israeli army radio compared the grief of Israeli parents of soldiers killed in action to that of Palestinians whose loved ones died while seeking to kill Israelis.