Jerusalem - Israeli fraud squad detectives questioned outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the eight time in recent weeks on Thursday, regarding corruption affairs in which the premier is suspected of being involved.

It was the Israeli leader's first interrogation since he resigned the premiership on September 21.

Israel Army Radio reported that the two-hour session at Olmert's Jerusalem office focused on allegations that, as trade and industry minister he pushed for favourable responses to be given to grant applications submitted to the ministry's investment centre by clients of his former law partner.

Jerusalem - Gains made by two far-right parties in Austria's parliamentary elections Sunday were of great concern to Israel, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday.

"We find it very preoccupying when groups which promote xenophobia and Holocaust denial befriend neo-Nazi elements," spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

He would not say whether Israel would recall its ambassador if the parties entered into a governing coalition, telling Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa that "it is premature to make forecasts regarding Austrian politics or consequent Israeli policies, but Israel is closely following developments."

Jerusalem - A full copy of nearly 52,000 testimonies of Holocaust survivors has been transferred to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre in Jerusalem, making it the world's largest repository of survivor evidence of the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

The testimonies, from 56 different countries and in 32 languages, were transferred from the archive of the University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, Yad Vashem said.

The testimonies will supplement Yad Vashem's existing archive of 10,000 testimonies, filmed from 1989, as well as 5,000 Holocaust- related films of all genres produced from 1945.

Jerusalem - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni slammed Wednesday a speech to the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and called for more international pressure to be applied to Tehran to force it to halt its nuclear programme.

The Iranian president, in his address to the United Nations on Tuesday, said that a "small, deceitful number of people called Zionists" were "playing with the dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people.

Jerusalem  - The Palestinian who drove his car into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem late Monday, injuring 19 people, did not carry out a premeditated attack, his family said Tuesday.

The Palestinian was identified Tuesday as Qassem Mughrabi, 19, from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukhaber.

Witnesses and Israeli police said he deliberately drove a black BMW into the soldiers as they were waiting to cross the road near the Old City, on the old border between East and West Jerusalem.

An officer who was with the soldiers and a civilian shot dead the perpetrator.

Jerusalem - The hardline opposition Likud party Tuesday rejected an invitation by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to join a government of national unity led by her centrist Kadima faction.

"Livni is trying to act in a stately manner, but she's coming across as pathetic," a confidant of Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli y-net news site.

The 12-mandate Likud earlier overnight issued a statement, formally rejecting the offer and calling for early elections.

"The citizens of Israel must be allowed to choose who will lead them and how," it said.