All crossings between Israel and the West Bank will close for four days over the Jewish New Year, the Israeli army announced Tuesday. Crossings will close between midnight on 7 September and midnight on 11 September, a military statement said. The civil administration would coordinate the passage of medical personnel, NGO workers, and lawyers, the statement added, and those requiring medical attention would be allowed to cross into Israel. 

Can Israel be a democratic and Jewish state at the same time? It's a divisive, long-running debate that has now found its way into the classroom - or rather, it's about to get kicked out of school. Israeli Education Ministry officials have moved to slash funding for high-school civics classes, where students learn about democracy, equal rights and government, and shift the money to religious teachings about the Bible, the Talmud and Zionism. 

Political rivals Hamas and Fatah are united – in anger. But the bite-sized nightly satirical sketches of Watan ala Watar have become a Ramadan sensation, cheering thousands of Palestinian television viewers through the holy month. The show has distracted families from the iftar meal that breaks their traditional daily fast, causing them to abandon half-eaten plates of chicken, lamb and rice for 10 minutes of intensive mockery of their political leaders. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday his ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu Party would block any attempt to extend a partial moratorium on settlements due to expire on September 26. But the Palestinians warned that failure to extend the 10-month halt to most new settlement construction in the West Bank outside occupied Arab East Jerusalem would spell the end of peace talks relaunched with great fanfare in Washington on Thursday. 

Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, has said a slowdown in West Bank settlement construction is unlikely to continue in its current form after it expires at the end of this month. Barak also said on Sunday that he does not believe that Israel will entirely cancel the 10-month curbs. He appeared to be leaving room for a compromise that might allow the Palestinians to continue the fragile direct negotiations that began in Washington last week. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, says he warned Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, last week that he will leave the talks if Israel does not extend the slowdown. 

A leading civil-rights group has accused Israeli police of systematic discrimination against the Arab residents of East Jerusalem as growing numbers of hardline religious Jews take up residence in Palestinian areas. A report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acri) found that violent confrontations between Jewish residents and their Palestinian neighbours had risen rapidly, but that Israeli police have largely ignored Palestinian complaints. 

The family of Rachel Corrie, the American activist crushed to death in Gaza seven years ago, could face the men driving the Israeli bulldozer that killed her in the second stage of their civil suit against the state. The case, which began in March, reopened at Haifa district court today and will hear Israeli state witness testimony on her death. The 23-year-old had been trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house in Rafah, in the Gaza strip. 

Gaza medics have retrieved the body of a second Palestinian killed when Israel's air force struck the southern Strip overnight, officials said Sunday morning. Gaza medical services spokesman Adham Abu Silmiyya said the body of 19-year-old Khalil Muhammad Al-Hattab from Al-Bureij refugee camp was found in the tunnel area in Rafah. One person is still missing, he added.