Israel released a second group of around 600 African migrants from a desert detention center on Wednesday after a court order, the prison authorities said.

Israeli authorities on Tuesday said they had foiled plans to attack Jews at the Joseph's Tomb shrine in Nablus in the occupied West Bank and arrested four Palestinians.

The suspects allegedly planned to plant home-made bombs at the site and open fire on visiting Jews, the Shin Bet domestic security agency said in a statement.

Israel released hundreds of African migrants from a desert detention center Tuesday after a court order, but asylum seekers were left with few options after being barred from two cities.

Detainees leaving the facility waited at bus stops for rides and wondered where they would live after being banned from Tel Aviv and Eilat, where African migrant communities have sprung up.

Almost 80,000 people had by Monday signed a petition urging the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes when he visits London next month.

The petition was launched earlier this month by British citizen Damian Moran and is posted on the government's website.

Israeli authorities have restricted the movements of 10 people amid a crackdown on Jewish extremists following the deadly firebombing of a Palestinian family's home, authorities said Sunday.

The orders range from a ban on entering the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a number of wildcat Jewish settlement outposts are reputed to house extremist youths, to lesser restrictions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas resigned Saturday as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's Executive Committee in a bid to force new elections for the top body, an official said.

Wassel Abu Yussef said that more than half of the 18-member committee had also stepped down.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved on Friday the renewal of the term of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday.

It said that the agreement was reached after closed-door consultations over the situation in southern Lebanon.

The exiled head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said "positive contacts" have been made towards securing a long-term truce with Israel, in a video posted Friday on an Arab website.

Meshaal's comments posted by pan-Arab news website al-Arabi al-Jadid were the first by a leader of Hamas, which does not recognize Israel, to openly confirm such contacts with the Israelis.

Aid groups Friday denounced Israeli demolitions of homes in the West Bank where the U.N. said 63 houses and other structures were destroyed this week alone, making 132 Palestinians homeless.

In a joint statement, 31 international organizations including Oxfam and Amnesty International slammed the "surge" in demolitions and urged world leaders "to take urgent action" to put an end to it.

Israel said it carried out an air raid Friday that killed up to five Iran-backed militants it said were behind a rare rocket attack from across the border in Syria.

The strike came a day after Israel launched a dozen air raids on the Syrian-side of the occupied Golan Heights, raising concerns about a possible escalation.