Israeli defense officials ruled out a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities as early as 2005, U.S. diplomatic cables leaked to whistleblower site WikiLeaks show, an Israeli newspaper said Sunday.

The documents given to the Haaretz newspaper by WikiLeaks detail conversations between U.S. diplomats and Israeli defense officials, which suggested the Jewish state did not plan to target Iran's controversial nuclear program.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has told a U.S. official that Lebanon was in need of hundreds of MiG-29 Russian fighter jets to “threaten Israel.”

In a WikiLeaks cable dated December 19, 2008, Geagea told U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Hale that Lebanese army pilots need a 10-year experience on the jets to confront Israel.

The National Struggle Front leader, MP Walid Jumblat, urged Lebanese officials to steer clear of regional conflicts and return to the dialogue table.

“It would be better to stay away from regional conflicts as much as possible and resume dialogue,” Jumblat told As Safir daily in remarks published Friday.

Hizbullah snapped back Thursday at caretaker premier Saad Hariri, who earlier in the day accused Tehran of trying to turn Lebanon and Gulf states into Iranian protectorates.

Hariri’s “provocative stances sincerely echoed U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ latest remarks about the Iranian role in the region,” read a statement released by Hizbullah's media relations department.

U.S. embassy officials visiting south Lebanon Thursday were attacked, but unhurt, by residents accusing them of being "Israeli conspirators," in the second such incident in a week, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Around 60 supporters of leftist groups gathered outside a government office in the port city of Sidon and pelted an embassy convoy with stones as it drove by, with some shouting "Americans, Israeli conspirators, in our government offices."

Former Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh has reportedly told ex-U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman that he was ready to mediate between the diplomat and Hizbullah.

However, Feltman rejected the offer saying “we don’t send messages to Hizbullah” which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.

The U.S. is not targeting Lebanese banks and will not look to levy “eminent punitive actions” against any bank, a senior economic adviser at the U.S. embassy told The Daily Star.

“The U.S. Treasury Department is not and will not levy charges against a single Lebanese bank,” the source said in remarks published Thursday, denying claims of the existence of a watch list of Lebanese banks.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held talks in Riyadh on Wednesday with Saudi King Abdullah, with both sides concerned by Iranian intentions in the region and spiraling unrest in Yemen.

"We talked about developments all over the region, obviously talked about Iran," Gates said following the meeting.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday sent a message to U.S. President Barack Obama, following the withdrawal of American warplanes from Libya, the official Libyan news agency JANA said.

"The leader of the revolution (Gadhafi) sent on Wednesday a message to U.S. President Barack Obama after the United States withdrew from the aggressive, colonialist coalition crusading against Libya," said the agency without specifying the contents of the message.

An Israeli official had requested in 2008 that the United States directly support the March 14 camp instead of the Lebanese state out of fears that Hizbullah may take over the cabinet, said a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday.

Nimrod Barkan, then head of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Center for Policy Research, made his statements during a meeting with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman in Israel.