Prime Minister Tammam Salam hoped Sunday on the 15th anniversary of the liberation of the South from Israeli occupation that the Lebanese will manage to restore the “solidarity and national unity” that “protected” Hizbullah's armed resistance.

“I congratulate all Lebanese on this great victory that was achieved through the epic battle of resistance, steadfastness and sacrifice that was fought by all the groups and components of our people,” said Salam in a statement marking the Liberation and Resistance Day.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his "appreciation" to the United States for opposing an Arab plan for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, an Israeli official said.

The Jewish state is believed to be the only country in the region that has an atomic bomb although it has never confirmed its nuclear military capacity.

A Palestinian youth on Sunday stabbed and wounded two Israeli teenagers on their way to the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City during a Jewish festival, officials said.

Police said in a statement they had arrested the 19-year-old Palestinian on suspicion of attacking the two 17-year-old Israelis from behind.

Thousands of Arabs marched in northern Israel on Saturday to protest against the death sentence issued in Egypt against ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Organisers said 5,000 people took part in the demonstration led by Sheikh Raed Salah, a firebrand preacher who heads the Islamist Movement's radical northern wing.

A senior official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party on Friday rejected fresh U.S. criticism of the premier as unjustified and hypocritical.

Tzahi Hanegbi, chairman of the influential foreign affairs and defense committee in parliament, was responding to remarks by U.S. President Barack Obama published Thursday in news magazine The Atlantic.

Two ultra-Orthodox news outlets concealed the faces and bodies of female ministers in pictures of Israel's new cabinet Thursday, renewing public debate over the practice.

Members of the newly sworn in 34th government posed for the traditional group photo at the presidential compound in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

A senior Iranian military official warned on Thursday that any Israeli attack would unleash a firestorm of missiles on its cities fired by the Islamic republic's Hizbullah allies in Lebanon.

The Lebanese group has more than 80,000 rockets ready to fire at Tel Aviv and Haifa, said General Yahya Rahim Safavi, military adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

After a Swiss court reportedly ordered an Israeli oil firm to compensate Iran over a scrapped joint venture, Israel said Thursday that its laws prohibited any payment to "the enemy."

Iranian state news agency IRNA said Wednesday that the court had found  Israel's Trans-Asian Oil (TAO) liable for payment of $1.1 billion to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

Speaker Nabih Berri called on the Lebanese rivals on Thursday to admit that a unified resistance is a needed concept to protect the country's border from the takfiri terrorism, which is threatening the nation.

“The border belongs to all the country and not a particular sect... we need to unite in solidarity with the resistance,” Berri said in a statement issued by his press office on the occasion of Resistance and Liberation Day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to mend fences with Israel's Arabs at a meeting Thursday with the head of the Arab parties in parliament, Ayman Odeh, after polarizing election-day remarks.

Netanyahu had caused an uproar when during the March 17 vote he warned that Arabs were being mobilized "in droves" to the ballot boxes, putting his rightwing rule at risk.