Top stories of the year, 5768

1. Mughniyah assassination - The death of Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyah in February was attributed to Israel and the Lebanese-based guerrilla group was not long in vowing revenge, a threat that Israel is taking seriously.

2. Olmert stepping down ? Succumbing to a seemingly endless series of corruption investigations against him, outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert announced that he would step down once his Kadima party had chosen a replacement leader. He made good on his promise in September, following the election of Tzipi Livni as party head.

3. Rose - Israel and the rest of the world were shocked by the sad tale of abuse and murder of a four-year-old girl, whose body was pulled out of a Tel Aviv river in September, months after she went missing. Rose Pizem's mother, Marie-Charlotte Renault, and her grandfather, Ronny Ron, have been charged with her murder.

4. Mercaz HaRav - A lone gunman from East Jerusalem entered the Jewish seminary in the capital one night in March, mowing down students, killing eight, before he was shot and killed by a student and an IDF officer.

5. Obama visit - Shortly after securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama embarked on a whirlwind pan-nation tour aimed at displaying his foreign policy chops. His arrival in Israel was red-carpet through and through, even down to the "I love Sderot" T-shirt he received from the mayor of the Qassam-battered town.

6. Gaza cease-fire - After months of Qassam rockets on southern Israel and retaliatory military action, Israel and Hamas reached an agreement in June on a temporary but open-ended period of calm. The truce between the two sides has largely held, with the exception of the occasional mortar and rocket fire into Israel.

7. Jerusalem tractor attacks - An East Jerusalem Palestinian with Israeli residency went on the rampage with a stolen bulldozer, killing three people and wounding dozens more before he was shot dead by an off-duty policeman. Two weeks later, another Palestinian from Jerusalem carried out a copycat attack, and was shot and killed by security forces.

8. Ahmadinejad at Columbia - The Iranian president took time out from railing against Israel at the United Nations to undergo some stiff grilling by students and faculty members at Columbia University in New York in late September 2007. His anti-Western rhetoric caused less of a stir than his assertion that there are no gays in Iran.

9. Livni's win - The foreign minister's narrow victory over chief rival Shaul Mofaz in the Kadima leadership race raised the possibility of a woman prime minister for the second time in Israel's history and for the first time since Golda Meir left office in 1974. Livni has been tasked with the job of forming a new coalition, and negotiations are underway.

10. Tommy Lapid and Abie Nathan - Two of Israel's most well-known personalities passed away this year. Holocaust survivor Yosef 'Tommy' Lapid, a veteran journalist and politician, died in June at the age of 76. Abie Nathan, the maverick peacenik who flew solo to Egypt seeking reconciliation and founder of the Voice of Peace pirate station, passed away in August aged 81.