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A fresh US-led diplomatic effort was under way yesterday to rescue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as construction resumed in some Jewish West Bank settlements after Israel's decision to end a 10-month moratorium on building.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas effectively gave US mediators at least a week to resolve the crisis by confirming that he would hold a series of consultations, culminating in an Arab League meeting called for next Monday, before deciding whether to pull out of the negotiations.

A computer worm which targets industrial and factory systems is almost certainly the work of a national government agency, security experts told the Guardian – but warn that it will be near-impossible to identify the culprit.

The "Stuxnet" computer worm, which has been described as one of the "most refined pieces of malware ever discovered", has been most active in Iran, says the security company Symantec – leading some experts to conjecture that the likely target of the virus is the controversial Bushehr nuclear power plant, and that it was created by Israeli hackers.

A report by three U.N.-appointed human rights experts Wednesday said that Israeli forces violated international law when they raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla killing nine activists earlier this year.

The U.N. Human Rights Council's fact-finding mission concluded that Israel's naval blockade of the Palestinian territory was unlawful because of the humanitarian crisis there, and described the military raid on the flotilla as brutal and disproportionate.

A Polish prosecutor says his office has opened an investigation into whether a Saudi man accused in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole was mistreated in a prison that the CIA allegedly ran in Poland.

Prosecutor Jerzy Mierzewski told The Associated Press on Wednesday that events surrounding Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's detention will be handled as part of an ongoing investigation into Poland's involvement in the now-shuttered U.S. system of secret prisons around the globe. No charges have yet been filed.

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The High Court of Justice on Wednesday ruled that the state's issue of tax benefits to Israeli citizens based on their place of residence was inequitable and discriminated against certain sectors of society, particularly Arabs.

Supreme Court president Dorit Beinisch, Justice Eliezer Rivlin and Justice Asher Grunis questioned the legality of these benefits, as no Arab community has been included as a recipient of the benefits. "The government and the Knesset systematically refrained from resolving this issue, contrary to the position of the attorney general," the judges wrote in their decision.

Israel reportedly hopes that a protracted timetable would test the viability of a peace deal by gradually building confidence that its security needs would be met even as it withdrew from territory that would become part of a Palestinian state.

Israel Hayom, a pro-government newspaper controlled by allies of Mr Netanyahu, said Palestinian officials were deeply opposed to dragging out the implementation phase for decades. It quoted an associate of Mr Abbas as saying that the proposal was proof "that Netanyahu wants to buy time."

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