Samsung Electronics on Saturday condemned an Israeli commercial featuring a Samsung tablet, expressing dismay at Iran's threat to ban its products over the apparently anti-Tehran teaser.

The South Korean electronics giant said it had not been involved in production of the TV spot, produced by Israeli cable TV channel HOT.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said time is running out for a settlement but he is not giving up, after Israeli and Palestinian leaders rejected a return to direct negotiations.

"Basically I am not disappointed, it is expected", Ban said late Thursday at the end of a three day trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories where he got little joy from political leaders and shoes hurled at him by protesters in Gaza.

Iran has its "own threats" to respond to any military attack or sanctions against its oil exports, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday.

"In response to threats of oil embargo and war, we have our own threats which will be implemented at the right time, if necessary," he said in a televised speech as he led traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a "strong likelihood" that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear installations this spring, the Washington Post said Thursday in an editorial.

When asked about the opinion piece by reporters travelling with him to a NATO meeting in Brussels, Panetta brushed it aside.

Two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were wounded by Israeli airstrikes early Friday morning, Palestinians said, only hours a visit of the U.N. chief to the Hamas-controlled territory.

According to a spokesman for Gaza emergency services, a three-and-a-half-year-old girl was seriously wounded by an airstrike at a home in the northern Gaza Strip town Beit Lahiya, which also left a man moderately wounded.

Speaker Nabih Berri stated on Thursday that Lebanon’s policy of distancing itself from the developments in the Arab world has preserved the Lebanese people’s interests.

He said: “Lebanon’s positive neutrality on all issues, except those related to Israel, has protected the country’s interests.”

Houses in southern Lebanon are a storage facility for missiles or rockets or a launch pad which are destructive and could hit the heart of the Israeli cities, Israel's chief of military intelligence, General Aviv Kochavi, warned on Thursday at a security conference.

Intelligence estimates, he said, showed "one in every 10 houses in south Lebanon is a storage facility for missiles or rockets or a launch pad for devices that are increasingly accurate and destructive."

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon came under a brief shower of shoes as he entered Hamas-run Gaza on Thursday, hours after a barrage of rockets was fired from the territory into Israel.

As the U.N. chief entered the Palestinian territory, protesters threw shoes, sand and small stones at his convoy, which was briefly held up before continuing on to Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Four rockets fired from the Gaza Strip struck inside Israel on Wednesday, causing neither casualties nor damage, an Israeli police spokesman said.

The rocket fire came as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is scheduled to visit Gaza on Thursday.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, meeting officials in Jerusalem on Wednesday, called on Israel to refrain from settlement activity and offer the Palestinians a "goodwill gesture" to help kickstart peace talks.

But he appeared to be rebuffed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he considered the issue of Israel's settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem something to be discussed during negotiations, not before.