Shaun Maloney celebrates his opening goal

Scotland might have gone further ahead in 11 minutes after a fine move.

Stewart hit a precise 60-yard ball to Stuart Duff, who in turn laid it into the path of McFadden.

His deft chip found Motherwell teammate Stephen Pearson at the back post, but his header came back off the post.

But the Israelis equalised after quarter-of-an-hour when the Scottish defence failed to track the run of Barda and the striker rolled the ball past the helpless Allan McGregor.

With only half of the floodlights working, things were rather gloomy, but Stewart almost brightened things up for the Scots with a fierce drive that Sekel did well to keep out.

Ohayon replied for Israel with a dipping free kick that had McGregor scrambling across his goal, and then a Degu shot flew just wide.

Maloney presented McFadden with a glorious opportunity five minutes into the second half, but he failed to convert despite getting two attempts to shoot.

On the hour mark, Ohayon rattled the bar with another superbly executed free kick.

Scotland continued to apply the greater pressure in the remaining half-hour and that paid off with six minutes to go when Kennedy timed his run perfectly to get on the end of another Stewart corner and head home.

Barda should have equalised again in injury time, but he put his effort wide of the target.

Scotland U-21: McGregor, Dowie, McCunnie, Doig, Duff, Michael Stewart, Brian Kerr, Pearson, Hammell, Maloney, McFadden.

Subs: Gordon, Gary Caldwell, Kennedy, O'Brien, McLean, Lynch, Thomas McManus, Soutar.

Israel U-21: Sekel, Yacov Moosa, Mishaeloff, Cohen, Abo Siam, Gazal, Ohayon, Luzon, Golan, Barda, Degu.

Subs: Shivon, Biton, Israilevich, Nagar, Mashioch, Hofi Nir, Attia, Azu.

Referee: J Feighery (Rep of Ireland)