Occupied West Bank : Israeli forces kill Palestinian man

The man died "after sustaining head wounds from live fire in Bir Nabala (in the occupied West Bank) ... and his wife suffered bullet wounds to her back," the ministry said.

The Palestinians' official Wafa news agency said the shooting took place at dawn as the couple were traveling in their car.

The Israeli army said its troops had "thwarted an attempted car-ramming attack against a group of soldiers operating at a checkpoint south of Ramallah".

It said the checkpoint was a temporary one, set up during "operational activity" in Bir Nabala.

"Soldiers at the checkpoint spotted a vehicle stopping at the checkpoint and suddenly accelerating towards another group of soldiers operating in the area, in a way that endangered the lives of the soldiers.

"The soldiers responded with fire in order to thwart the threat," the army said.

A Palestinian motorist has been killed and his wife wounded by Israeli fire, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, in what the Israeli army described as an "attempted car-ramming attack".

Netanyahu's corruption trial opened on Monday – a day of high political drama in Israel as President Reuven Rivlin held talks with party delegations on who they would recommend he pick to try to form a government after an inconclusive election last month, the country's fourth in two years.

A spokesman for Rivlin said the president would announce his decision on Tuesday. Netanyahu, whose right-wing Likud party came first in the March 23 ballot, won the most endorsements, but was still short of a governing majority in parliament.

Speaking at the trial in Jerusalem District Court, state prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari said: "The relationship between Netanyahu and the [co-] defendants became currency, something that could be traded."

"This currency could distort a public servant's judgment," Ben-Ari said.

He is Israel's longest-serving prime minister and has clung to power through four hard-fought elections in less than two years, even as he has faced allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. The March 23 election was largely a referendum on his leadership but produced no clear verdict.

An Israeli prosecutor has told a court that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had helped a business couple to clinch deals worth hundred of millions of shekels in exchange for favourable coverage of him on a news website they controlled.