More than 1,000 Italian security personnel were called up to help safeguard the event, and air space around the tiny Holy See has been closed off for the day.

"Who said these things about Smotrich and his wife?" MK Ahmad Tibi rhetorically asked the Knesset before reading a 2016 post from Likud MK Tali Gottleib.

During the Lapid-Bennett government, the opposition harshly criticized the coalition for applying the law 21 times.

Arguments for and against the High Court petitions will touch on issues such as the authority of the Knesset to legislate quasi-constitutional Basic Laws.

Officials said in a statement there was no threat to the public and no suspects were believed to be at large.

A team of Israeli researchers has mapped the way in which DNA is labeled in all the cells of the human body.

Arabs in Israel account for around a fifth of the population and most are descendants of Palestinians who remained within the newly founded state after its 1948 war of independence.

Gantz's proposal came after Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced his plan for legal reform on Wednesday evening.