Israeli forces on Wednesday began evicting a group of settlers from a disputed house in the West Bank city of Hebron, a day after they were ordered to leave the property, police said.

"The security forces are evacuating the house at this moment," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are to hold renewed talks, in what would be their first public meeting in more than two months, a senior official said on Tuesday.

"There are preparations with the Israeli side to have a meeting between Saeb Erakat and Yitzhak Molcho in the next few hours or days," the senior Palestinian official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor said Tuesday he would hold off on a probe into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories until the U.N. rules on Palestinian statehood.

"The office (of the prosecutor) has assessed that it is for the relevant bodies at the U.N. or the Assembly of State Parties to make a legal determination whether Palestine qualifies as a state for the purpose of acceding to the Rome Statute", the court's founding treaty, the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Israeli forces on Tuesday razed four homes and dozens of electricity pylons near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Palestinian witnesses and an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

"At 4:00 am (0100 GMT) army tractors demolished four homes and 52 electricity pylons in the al-Makhrureh area of Beit Jalla," Mazen al-Azzeh, coordinator of the Popular Campaign to Fight Settlements in Bethlehem, told AFP.

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Fayez Karam, who was convicted of collaborating with Israel, was released from jail on Tuesday after the prison year was reduced to nine months.

The National News Agency reported that a white Jeep Infinity transferred Karam from the military police prison in al-Rayhaniyeh near the Defense Ministry.

Plans to evict a group of Israeli settlers from a contested home in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron appeared to be on hold on Tuesday, after Israel's prime minister intervened to seek a delay.

On Monday, Israel's civil administration, the military body which manages civilian affairs in parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control, ordered the settlers to evacuate the property by 3:00 pm (1200 GMT) on Tuesday.

Cypriot authorities informed Lebanon that Israel is willing to resolve the dispute over the maritime borders, As Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Sources told the daily that the extensive contacts between the Lebanese and Cypriot sides “expressed the seriousness of the Cypriot part to resolve the issue.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat saluted on Monday the Syrian people in their ongoing uprising against the ruling regime.

He noted in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “The resistance in Lebanon must join the Syrian people’s resistance against the regime.”

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti has been placed in solitary confinement for a week after calling for the Palestinians to end all cooperation with Israel, the prisons authority said.

"Marwan Barghouti was placed in solitary confinement on Sunday, for a period of a week," spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told Agence France Presse, saying he would not be able to receive visits, and that he would be barred from the prison cafeteria for a month.

Israel on Sunday deported a Palestinian woman prisoner who spent 43 days on hunger strike to the Gaza Strip, under a deal that has been criticized by Palestinians.

Eyewitnesses and Palestinian officials told Agence France Presse that Hanaa Shalabi entered Gaza via the Erez border crossing, and was being transferred by ambulance to a local hospital for tests.