Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney on Tuesday blasted President Barack Obama's approach to Israel, charging he has "immeasurably" damaged Middle East peace prospects and failed to confront Iran.

The former Massachusetts governor, in excerpts of a speech to be delivered on Wednesday to the Republican Jewish Coalition, also declared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "should be indicted for the crime of incitement to genocide."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that the Jewish state is taking precautions and is tracking the possible transfer of arms from Syria to Hizbullah.

Touring the Golan Heights, Barak said Israel is concerned that Hizbullah is planning to move advanced weaponry out of Syria to prevent it from being captured by opposition groups if the Assad regime collapses.

An al-Qaida-inspired group has denied claiming responsibility for a recent rocket attack from southern Lebanon against Israel, instead blaming a group linked to Hizbullah, a U.S. monitoring group said Monday.

In a statement issued on jihadist forums, the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam said the November 29 attack should be seen as a warning to the West and Israel from embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the SITE Intelligence Group said.

Israeli troops were on very high alert along the southern border with the Egyptian Sinai on Monday over fears a cell of gunmen had crossed the border into southern Israel, a security source told Agence France Presse.

The state of alert was based on "intelligence information about a cell of terrorists planning an attack" on a road which runs close to the border in the southern Negev desert, the source said.

Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry filed on Monday a complaint with the United Nations against Israel for shelling southern Lebanon in November.

The ministry accused Israel of violating Lebanon’s sovereignty and U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

Many former U.S. intelligence officials and Iran experts believe last month's explosion at a military base near Tehran was part of a covert effort by the U.S., Israel and other states to disable Iran's nuclear and missile programs, The Los Angeles Times reported late Sunday.

The huge explosion ripped through the Revolutionary Guard Corps base on November 12, leveling most of the buildings and killing 17 people, including a founder of Iran's ballistic missile program, General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

Seven young Israeli women, six of them minors, have been arrested on suspicion of participating in the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian olive trees, Israeli police said on Sunday.

The women are also accused of taking part in demonstrations against the dismantling of illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, during which Israeli army equipment was damaged, a police spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed deep concern on Saturday after early results in Egypt's post-revolution election showed Islamists sweeping to victory.

"The process of Islamization in Arab countries is very worrying," Barak told Israel's private Channel Two television.

The Muslim Brotherhood, expected to win 40 percent of votes in the first phase of Egypt's post-revolution election, stressed Saturday it was a moderate force, not to be confused with hardliners.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is set to emerge as the dominant force in the country's lower house of parliament for which voting began in a third of Egypt's districts on Monday and Tuesday.

Hizbullah’s announcement on Friday that it had foiled an attempt by Israel to spy on its telecom network that was installed between two southern towns, raised questions on how Israel succeeded in its operation, the Central News Agency reported.

Security sources told the news agency on Saturday that the “war between Israel and Hizbullah became electronic.”