Jerusalem - Setting the stage for a possible showdown with the United States and the European Union, new Israel Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that Israel was not bound by the internationally-endorsed Annapolis peace process, which forms the basis for the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party signed a coalition agreement with a fifth partner, the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism (UTJ) on Wednesday, a day after his government was sworn in.

The agreement was signed after last-minute differences were ironed out, Israel Radio reported.

UTJ, which has five mandates in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel's parliament, did not receive any ministerial portfolios. It did receive the deputy ministerial posts of health and education.

Jerusalem  - Israel's president hosted the country's new and outgoing prime ministers Wednesday for a formal changing of the guards that included a red-carpet welcome and the playing of the national anthem.

President Shimon Peres, whose duties are largely ceremonial, was to address the gathering, as was outgoing premier Ehud Olmert and incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose new government was sworn in by the Knesset late Tuesday.

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Jerusalem - The Palestinian leadership Tuesday reacted with disappointment to comments by Israel's incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his failure to support a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict.

"We had hoped to hear from Benjamin Netanyahu a commitment to the two-state solution, to negotiations on all core issues without exception, including Jerusalem, to stopping all settlement activities ... and to lifting the siege on Gaza," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in a statement.

Jerusalem - Nearly 70 per cent of Palestinian young adults believe the use of violence to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not very helpful, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study released Tuesday.

Only 8 per cent believe violence is an important tool, the study, based on interviews with 1,200 Palestinians over the age of 17 in the West Bank and Gaza.

The study also found out that more than 80 per cent of young Palestinians are depressed, and 47 per cent identify themselves as Muslim rather than Palestinian.