A rocket fired at Israel on Saturday by Palestinian militants instead hit a house in the Gaza Strip, but there were no casualties, witnesses said.

It apparently exploded prematurely, damaging the house, the witnesses said, without being able to provide further details.

The Permanent Military Tribunal headed by Brig. Gen. Nizar Khalil on Friday sentenced to death Haitham al-Sahmarani, a retired Internal Security Forces first sergeant, on charges of collaboration with Israel.

Upon his arrest in 2009 Sahmarani confessed to collaborating, along with his wife, with the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

Palestinian militants fired two rockets at southern Israel on Friday evening, causing neither casualties or damage, an Israeli military spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

"A rocket landed in the Eshkol Regional Council; there was no damage or injuries reported," she said.

U.S. State Department special coordinator on Middle East affairs Frederick Hof’s brief visit to Lebanon focused on Lebanon’s oil and gas wealth and its attempts to drill for them in the Mediterranean, political sources told the Central News Agency on Friday.

They added that he was impressed by Lebanon’s thorough evaluation of the file, especially the army’s assessment of the issue, which it supported with all the necessary documents.

Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City held a rally on Friday in solidarity with an Islamic Jihad member, detained without trial by Israel, on the 62th day of a hunger strike.

"We stand by the heroic symbol of prisoners, brother Khader Adnan, in his unlimited hunger strike," head of the Hamas government in Gaza Ismail Haniya, just back from a tour of Gulf countries via Egypt, told reporters ahead of the event.

Iran and Hizbullah are planning to carry out new anti-Israeli attacks around the world, a senior Israeli security official warned on Friday.

"Iran and Hizbullah are planning more attacks overseas," he told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity and without giving further details.

A Cypriot foreign ministry official, tasked with following up the natural resources issue with Lebanese authorities, held talks with a number of senior officials during an undisclosed visit to Beirut.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, the result of the visit was described as “positive.”

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Thursday that Lebanon is committed to the drilling of oil within all of its maritime borders.

He said that “Lebanon is determined to invest in its petroleum and gas wealth.”

Israel released on Thursday a Lebanese citizen who had been imprisoned in the Jewish state for four years, reported the National News Agency.

Khaled al-Mohammed, 55, was apprehended on Lebanese territory and jailed by Israel on charges of smuggling drugs into Palestinian territories.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday accused Iran of "exaggerating" progress on its disputed nuclear program a day after Tehran unveiled what it said was its first domestically-produced 20-percent enriched uranium.

"The Iranians are continuing to progress but what they presented yesterday was a show. There are many things which have been presented in an exaggerated manner, partly to dissuade the world from going after them," he told public radio by telephone from Tokyo.