A majority of Israelis would support unilateral military action against Iran, according to a poll published Friday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government was ready to act alone.

Some 65.6 percent of 500 Jewish Israelis surveyed by the pro-government Israel HaYom newspaper said they would support military strikes to halt Iran's nuclear program, and 84 percent believed the Islamic republic had no intention of reining in its alleged drive to build a bomb.

The United States, South Korea and Japan will hold joint naval exercises next week in waters around the Korean peninsula, a U.S. defense official said Thursday, as fears grow over Pyongyang's nuclear program.

The announcement comes as U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry were in Tokyo to meet their Japanese counterparts following talks with South Korean officials this week.

North Korea has clearly restarted an aging plutonium reactor which would help it boost its nuclear weapons program, a U.S. think tank said Wednesday after analyzing new imagery.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, which last month reported signs that the Yongbyon reactor had resumed operation, said that more conclusive evidence emerged in the latest image.

North Korea on Wednesday condemned South Korea's "lunatic hostility" in staging a military parade that showcased a cruise missile capable of precision strikes against the leadership in Pyongyang.

Tuesday's display of weaponry in Seoul was the largest for a decade, involving 11,000 troops, 120 aircraft, tanks, heavy artillery and a range of missiles.

South Korea and the United States signed a new strategic pact Wednesday that provides a "tailored" deterrence against the specific threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea.

The operational plan establishes a "strategic framework" within the two countries' military alliance for dealing with "key North Korean nuclear threat scenarios" both now and in the event of war, according to a joint statement.

North Korea warned rival South Korea it risks triggering a "destructive" showdown and accused the United States of abusing its power on the U.N. Security Council, in a fiery address Tuesday.

Hours after South Korea paraded a missile capable of pinpoint strikes across the border, North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Pak Kil-Yon said his government's "generous" efforts to improve relations had hit a "confrontational approach" from the South.

South Korea staged its largest military display for a decade on Tuesday, as President Park Geun-Hye warned of the "very grave" threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Some 11,000 troops and 120 aircraft took part in the event at an air base south of Seoul, which showed off the military's most advanced weaponry, including a cruise missile capable of surgical strikes on the North Korean leadership.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel toured the South-North Korean border Monday as he kicked off a trip to key regional allies in the battle to halt Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

"There is no margin of error up here," Hagel told reporters at the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel flies Saturday to South Korea and Japan to affirm military ties that are entering a new chapter in the face of North Korea's threats and China's growing power.

It will be Hagel's third visit to the region as Pentagon chief, and comes as Washington presses ahead with its strategic shift to the Asia-Pacific region despite growing budget pressures and repeated crises in the Middle East.

The United States and China on Thursday agreed to keep up a tough sanctions regime on North Korea amid warnings that the reclusive nation is still managing to pursue its nuclear program, a U.S. official said.

"Sanctions efforts in general were explicitly discussed" in talks between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, the senior State Department official said.