With a four-day lockdown and economic sanctions, Israel cracked down hard on the West Bank village of Qabatiya after three of its sons killed a policewoman in a Jerusalem attack.

But residents of the hilltop village of 25,000 pledge to keep up their long history of struggle against foreign masters, come what may.

An Israeli court on Thursday weighed the sanity of a Jewish man found to be the ringleader of the beating and burning alive of a Palestinian teenager in 2014.

Israeli settler Yosef Haim Ben-David, 31, was found to have led the assault, but his lawyers submitted last-minute documents saying he suffered from mental illness and was not responsible for his actions.

Top officials from Turkey and Israel have begun new closed-door talks on a deal to normalize ties more than half a decade after relations were downgraded, a report said Thursday.

Delegations led by powerful Turkish foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu and Joseph Ciechanover, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli National Security Advisor Jacob Nagel started talks in Geneva late on Wednesday, the Turkish NTV television channel reported.

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Wednesday that no peace deal was possible for now and his country must begin unilaterally separating from the Palestinians "as much as possible" to restore security.

Herzog made the comments while laying out his new security and diplomatic initiative that has caused waves in Israeli politics and sparked criticism from within his own party.

Hamas on Monday denied Israeli accusations that wounded Islamic State group fighters from Egypt had been smuggled through tunnels to receive medical care in the Islamist-run Gaza Strip.

Israeli General Yoav Mordechai had accused the jihadist group of smuggling wounded fighters from Sinai Province -- the IS affiliate in northern Egypt -- through tunnels into the Palestinian enclave for treatment.

A Sudanese man stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier Sunday before being shot dead in southern Israel, with police investigating whether the attack was carried out in solidarity with Palestinians.

Police initially said the incident near a bus station in the southern city of Ashkelon was suspected to be part of a wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks that erupted in October. 

Ailing Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qiq will keep up his 10-week hunger strike despite Israel suspending a detention without trial order against him, his lawyer said on Friday.

The 33-year-old television reporter, who still cannot leave hospital without permission, is "determined to continue his fast until he is freed", Jawad Boulos told AFP.

Israel said Thursday it has charged a policeman with sending details of a Jewish woman who was riding in a car with Palestinian men to extremists opposed to interracial relationships.

The justice ministry filed charges Wednesday against border police officer Matan Amichai, who in December 2014 stopped a car in a routine check near the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday suspended the detention without trial of a Palestinian journalist who has been on hunger strike for more than two months, but he cannot leave hospital without permission.

Mohammed al-Qiq, 33, was said to be on hunger strike for 72 days to protest being held under Israel's controversial administrative detention law, which allows the state to hold suspects for renewable six-month periods without trial.

A court sentenced two young Israelis to life and 21 years in prison Thursday for the 2014 burning alive of a Palestinian teenager, a case that has been closely watched at a time of renewed unrest.

The sentencing came amid a wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car-rammings that erupted in October, including an attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday that killed a policewoman.