Although the leaderships of the Shas and United Torah Judaism political parties and other mainstream ultra-Orthodox bodies did not formally endorse the demonstration, the gathering outside Jerusalem’s IDF draft office far exceeded the crowd of five thousand for which police had issued a permit to protest. Some sections of the crowd turned violent, in what Jerusalem police chief Yossi Pariente described as “a mass public disturbance.” Stones and other objects were thrown at security personnel with eight policemen injured. Ten protesters were arrested and crowd dispersal methods including water cannon were used.

Speaking at the event, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, a leading ultra-Orthodox figure said “There can be no compromise here. We will stand as a wall against these decrees, so nothing can penetrate them… If we create even the smallest gap in this wall, then it will open the way for them to enter.”

Yesterday’s demonstration came as a ministerial committee headed by Science and Technology Minister and Yesh Atid MK Yaakov Peri prepares recommendations for a more equitable draft system. The reform of military enlistment was a major issue in January’s election campaign and a commitment to change the status quo formed part of the coalition agreement which saw Yesh Atid join the government. As a result, Peri’s committee is considering a plan under which just 1,800 ultra-Orthodox religious seminary students would be exempt from service with an estimated 6,200 required to enlist. It was suggested last week that the committee could recommend imprisonment rather than just financial sanctions for those who refuse to enlist. However, with cuts being made to the Defence Ministry budget, some have doubted whether funding will be available for a major upsurge in ultra-Orthodox recruitment.

The United States had advised Erdogan to put his plans to visit Gaza on hold, but after a meeting with US President Obama, the Turkish premier said, “According to my plan, most probably I would be visiting Gaza in June.” He added, “But it will not be a visit only to Gaza. I will also go to the West Bank” where he will presumably meet Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders. Erdogan further commented, “I place a lot of significance on this visit in terms of peace in the Middle East. I’m hoping that that visit will contribute to unity in Palestine.”

Erdogan’s visit to Gaza is likely to test Turkey’s relations with Israel, which have only recently begun to improve after the United States brokered an arrangement to mend a rift which had existed between the two countries since 2010. In March Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paved the way for reconciliation by apologising to Erdogan after the deaths of nine Turkish citizens who were killed whilst trying to prevent Israeli commandos taking over a Gaza-bound protest ship, the Mavi Marmara in 2010. Two high-level meetings between Israel and Turkish officials have since then taken place, with a compensation deal being finalised, which is intended to pave the way for a full restoration of ties between the two countries.

However, Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza Strip, which is administered by Hamas is likely to anger Israel. It is also liable to antagonise the PA which also does not regard Hamas as the legitimate authority in Gaza, following a bloody Hamas coup which ousted the PA from the area in 2007.

According to Channel Two, Netanyahu told Putin during a three-hour meeting that should the Assad regime utilise the sophisticated system against Israeli aircraft, it “is likely to draw us into a response, and could send the region deteriorating into war.” Russia has agreed to sell Syria an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system, which is capable of intercepting aircraft at a range of over sixty miles and could challenge Israel’s air superiority in the region.

Channel Two also reported last night that Israel has sent an unprecedented message to President Assad that Syrian retaliation to air strikes aimed at preventing weapons transfers would precipitate a heavy Israeli response bringing down his regime. Syrian officials last week threatened to respond to further operations, following an air strike earlier this month, assumed to be carried out by Israel, which targeted military installations near Damascus where sophisticated Iranian weaponry was being stored before being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, yesterday morning, two mortar shells fired from Syria landed in the Mount Hermon area of the Israeli Golan Heights for the first time. The area is popular with hikers and although the mortars caused no injuries or damage, the site was closed to tourists enjoying a national holiday for several hours. Stray fire from the fighting in Syria has landed in Israeli territory on the Golan Heights on several occasions over the last few months. However, Israeli security officials are investigating whether yesterday’s incident was deliberate, with YNet reporting that a Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for the shelling.

Reports in several Arabic newspapers including the London-based al-Hayat yesterday gave further indication that the Golan Heights could become increasingly volatile, claiming that Iran has convinced Assad to permit Hezbollah to launch attacks against Israel from the area.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met yesterday in Istanbul with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who is also a candidate in Iran’s presidential election next month. Ashton is responsible for contact between Iran and the so-called P5+1 forum (United States, UK, China, Russia, France and Germany), which leads international efforts to find a diplomatic solution to resolve concerns over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Although Ashton described yesterday’s meeting as “useful”, she was unable to report any substantive development, simply commenting, “we talked about the proposals we had put forward and we will now reflect on how to go on to the next stage of the process.” Iran has so far failed to respond to a P5+1 proposal last month which would have eased international sanctions on Iran in return for ending its’ development of twenty per cent uranium.

Meanwhile, in Vienna, representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) met with Iranian officials but were unable to reach agreement to allow IAEA inspectors access to sites, officials and documents necessary to conduct an investigation into Iran’s nuclear development. The IAEA is especially keen to visit the Parchin plant, where it is suspected nuclear ballistic tests may have been carried out. IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts told reporters, “we could not finalise the structured approach document that has been under negotiations for a year and-a-half now.” Nackaerts pledged that “our commitment to continue dialogue is unwavering” but added “we must recognize that our best efforts have not been successful so far.”

It is widely thought that further talks on either track are unlikely to take place until after Iran’s presidential election on 14 June.

The Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, and the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip have been fierce rivals since a bloody coup by Hamas in Gaza brought an end to a short lived unity government in June 2007. Although relations between the two have warmed over the past several months, efforts to broker reconciliation collapsed in February. Agreement on a unity government has been reached on several occasions over the past few years, but none have been implemented.

Following talks at the Egyptian security services headquarters in Cairo on Tuesday, it was announced that the two sides had agreed to work towards the formation of a new Palestinian government and a date will be set for both presidential and parliamentary elections. A new PA Prime Minister must also be found to replace Salam Fayyad, a popular figure with Western governments, who resigned in April following increasing disagreements with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Fatah’s Azzam al-Ahmed told Voice of Palestine radio, “We must take immediate steps to agree on the Palestinian National Council’s electoral law and set a date for elections. We have said these measures must be carried out within three months.” According to AFP, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zohri commented that both sides had decided to “finalize all reconciliation issues in three months, including that of the national unity government.”

Meanwhile, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, clashes took place yesterday between Israeli security forces and rock-throwing Palestinian demonstrators who were marking Naqba Day (“Catastrophe Day”), a Palestinian commemoration of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which happened amidst a war during which many Palestinians fled their homes.

The meeting is expected to take place at Putin’s Black Sea residence at Sochi and a Kremlin statement yesterday confirmed the talks between the two leaders, saying “It is expected that major attention will be paid to the current situation in the Middle East, first and foremost in Syria.” Russia is considered to be a staunch supporter of President Assad’s regime and it is thought that Netanyahu will appeal to Putin to pull out of an agreed sale of the S-300 advanced anti-aircraft missile system to the Assad regime. The sophisticated system is capable of intercepting aircraft at a range of over sixty miles and could challenge Israel’s air superiority in the region. Earlier this month, an air strike, assumed to be carried out by Israel, targeted military installations near Damascus, where sophisticated Iranian weaponry was being stored before being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The addition of the S-300 system to Assad’s arsenal would also complicate any international efforts to intervene more directly with the bloody Syrian conflict. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and US Secretary of State John Kerry have visited Putin in Russia over the last week, in order to strategise over fostering a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict. It is thought that Cameron also raised the subject of the S-300 sale with Putin. Cameron discussed his trip to Russia and efforts to coordinate a Syria strategy with the Russian president during a meeting in Washington yesterday with US President Obama. Cameron said that it is vital to “put pressure on Assad so he knows there is no military victory” although he played down the prospects of any immediate progress.

The project, on 1,800 dunams of land is intended to primarily provide a housing solution to Palestinian Bedouins in the area who currently live in unauthorised homes, which are often not connected to public utilities. The Civil Administration emphasised that the plan had been put together “with the understanding” of local Palestinian villages and the Palestinian Authority. The plot of land is situated just north of Jericho and initial construction will focus on individual homes.

The announcement comes amid concerted efforts by US Secretary of State to kick-start talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Kerry has visited the region four times since taking office in February. The issue of West Bank construction has been highlighted as a potential stumbling block in bringing the two sides together and yesterday’s announcement follows on from suggestions last week that Israel’s government had instituted a de-facto freeze on Israeli settlement building designed to give Kerry’s efforts the opportunity to bear fruit.

Settlement leaders yesterday criticised the new construction plan.  Yigal Delmonti, a spokesman for the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip termed it the “theatre of the absurd,” saying “Israel is advancing plans to build thousands of Palestinian homes in Area C… while at the same time they are stopping building tenders for Israeli settlements.” The Civil Administration’s construction plans for the project must now go through several approval stages, including a sixty day period to allow for objections to be filed.

This week’s talks will be the tenth round of meetings between the two sides since the start of 2012, with the IAEA no closer to securing access to the sites, documents and personnel necessary to carry out an inquiry into Iran’s nuclear development. In particular, the IAEA has been frustrated by Iran’s refusal to allow inspectors access to the Parchin plant, where it is suspected nuclear ballistic tests may have been carried out. Tehran insists that a complex framework to the investigation must first be agreed.

With the two sides set to meet in Vienna, a Western diplomat based in the Austrian capital told Reuters that there is “no reason at all for optimism.” Another unnamed diplomat in Vienna told Xinhua news agency “Our expectation is still low, there is no indication that Iran would make any substantial deal with IAEA.”

However, Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh yesterday struck a different tone, commenting “We have the meeting with the expectation of progress of course… We are serious in these talks.”

Wednesday’s talks come ahead of the publication of the latest IAEA quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear programme. The IAEA’s previous assessment concluded that Iran has not reduced its uranium enrichment over the previous three months and that it has installed new advanced centrifuges at the Natanz plant. Meanwhile, the parallel diplomatic track between Iran and the so-called P5+1 powers – United States, UK, China, Russia, France and Germany – who are tasked with leading the international effort to resolve concerns over Tehran’s nuclear programme, reached an impasse at a meeting in Kazakhstan last month.

Lapid’s plans include a 1.5 per cent rise in income tax across all tax brackets from 2014. Among the other planned measures are reduced child allowances, a one per cent rise in VAT and a reduction in expenses in all government ministries. In total, state spending will be reduced by £4.5billion between August 2013 and the end of 2014. Lapid has been accused of letting down the very middle class voters he courted during January’s election campaign and it is estimated that between 10-15,000 Israelis took to the streets on Saturday night to protest against the plan. Labour MK Stav Shaffir, one of the leaders of the 2011 social protests, called the weekend demonstrations “fiercer, more political” than the wave of protests two years ago.

Nonetheless, the cabinet is expected to endorse Lapid’s plan this morning. The security cabinet met throughout yesterday to discuss proposed cuts in defence spending which are integral to the budgetary proposal. Economy and Trade Minister, Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett said that the Defence Ministry would have to share in the budget cuts while Lapid’s predecessor at the Finance Ministry Yuval Steinitz said “there’s no choice” but to cut the security budget. Lapid has warned that if defence cuts are not made, then savings will be necessary elsewhere. Most ministers are set to approve the budget, although Environment Protection Minister Amir Peretz and Tourism Minister Uzi Landau have indicated that they may vote against it. If approved today, the budget will be presented to the Knesset, where it is likely to face further opposition.