Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas arrived in Beijing on Sunday for a state visit, official media said, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also set to meet Chinese leaders later this week. Abbas will stay in China through Tuesday, the state news agency Xinhua reported, while Netanyahu is due to arrive in the financial hub of Shanghai on Monday for two days and then visit Beijing until Friday.

Israeli leaders warned the army was prepared to meet all threats facing it, as they paid tribute to fallen troops and civilian deaths in terror attacks at Memorial Day ceremonies on Sunday. "Since our inception as a people, we had to fight for our freedom and our existence," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at an afternoon ceremony. "Today, too, there are those who threaten to annihilate us -- they haven't succeeded in the past, they won't ever succeed", he said in an apparent reference to Iran.

Israeli officials and holocaust survivors attended the annual ceremony of Holocaust Remembrance Memorial Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem on Sunday. The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, ministers, foreign diplomats, lawmakers, judges, high-ranking military officials and holocaust survivors. Netanyahu used the stage to give a stern speech against Iran, which, according to him, is aiming to put an end to the Jewish state. "Iran has bluntly declared its intention to destroy the State of Israel and is worki

President Barack Obama Wednesday accepted Israel would not cede its right to confront Iran's nuclear threat to the United States, seeking to assuage anxiety over his commitment to the Jewish state. Obama, on his debut trip to Israel as president, also warned Syria would face international action if it used chemical weapons in its civil war and admitted he could have been more "deft" in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.