Israel is to admit hundreds more Ethiopian migrants with family in the Jewish state, the ruling party said, resolving a political crisis that had threatened to bring down the government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party said on Thursday night it had agreed with its partners in the vulnerable coalition government that 1,300 Ethiopians would come this year and more would be considered later.

An Israeli military court on Thursday ordered a soldier filmed shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant to remain confined to his base for a further week, his lawyer told AFP.

Defense counsel Binyamin Malcha said the 19-year-old sergeant would appear for another remand hearing on April 14.

Israel began construction on a controversial part of its separation barrier in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, near a Palestinian Christian town, an AFP journalist reported.

Cranes began lifting eight-meter(yard)-high blocks into place near Beit Jala, south of Jerusalem and close to Bethlehem, a photographer witnessed.

A key Israeli minister said Thursday that the government is at risk of collapsing if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's narrow coalition is not enlarged soon.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan's comments came amid claims that talks have taken place between Netanyahu and the opposition Zionist Union on joining the coalition, which currently holds a one-seat majority in parliament.

Turkey and Israel held a fresh round of talks Thursday in an effort to normalize ties after relations were partially frozen five years ago, said Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

NATO member Turkey was a key regional ally of Israel until the two countries fell out in 2010 over the deadly storming by Israeli commandos of a Turkish aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, bound for Gaza.

A parole board on Wednesday rejected a request for early release for Israeli ex-president Moshe Katsav, who began serving a seven-year prison term in 2011 for rape and other sexual offences.

The justice ministry said the parole board found that Katsav, the first Israeli head of state to be sent to prison, "expressed no regret and no sympathy toward the victims of his crimes."

Israeli and Palestinian officials reached an agreement on Wednesday to stop several days of rolling blackouts in the occupied West Bank over what Israel says is some $450 million in debt.

Under the agreement, the Palestinian Authority would make an immediate payment of 20 million shekels ($5.2 million, 4.6 million euros) and engage in negotiations on the remainder, the state-run Israel Electricity Corporation said in a statement.

Israeli tax authorities said Tuesday they were searching the mass of leaked documents known as the Panama Papers, after media reports said 600 Israeli companies and two major banks were included.

A spokeswoman from the tax authorities said the information from the leak "strengthens our campaign, launched last year, aimed at convincing Israelis who have not declared their fortune abroad to do so without facing penalties."

Israeli forces demolished the family homes early on Monday of three Palestinians killed after a deadly attack in east Jerusalem in February, Palestinian security sources and the Israeli army said.

The three homes were destroyed in Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, an Israeli army statement said.

Speaker Nabih Berri revealed that the demarcation of Lebanon's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Mediterranean was among the issues he discussed with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during his visit to the country last week, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Monday.

Berri told the daily that Ban was “receptive of an official Lebanese request that the U.N. demarcate the Lebanon's EEZ, which borders Israel.”