Christian schools in Israel and east Jerusalem have threatened to stay closed for Tuesday's start of the new academic year over a financing dispute with the government, an official said.

Some 33,000 students attend some 45 Christian schools, which employ 3,000 teachers in Israel and east Jerusalem.

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday confirmed a one-year jail sentence handed down to a Druze former MP for visiting Syria, an "enemy country."

Said Naffaa had appealed a September 2014 verdict sentencing him to 18 months for traveling to Syria and making contact with a "foreign agent."

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and stun grenades on Sunday to disperse a protest in a Palestinian Christian town near Bethlehem against renewed work on Israel's West Bank separation barrier.

Dozens of Palestinian and foreign protesters marched in the West Bank village of Beit Jala towards an area where military bulldozers have uprooted olive trees to clear space for the barrier.

Iran has barred famed conductor Daniel Barenboim from entering the Islamic republic because of his Israeli citizenship, denting plans he had for a performance in Tehran, a news agency reported Sunday.

Barenboim, 72, general music director of the Berlin State Opera House, said Thursday he was in talks with Iran about a concert, in what would have been a major example of cultural diplomacy.

The deal to curb Iran's nuclear program will bolster Tehran's ability to fund global terrorism by providing the Islamic state with "billions of dollars" in sanctions relief, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Saturday.

"Iran will get hundreds of billions of dollars from sanctions relief and investments to fuel its aggression and terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa and beyond," Netanyahu -- who is bitterly opposed to the deal agreed by Iran and world powers in July -- said during a visit to the Italian city of Florence.

A billboard in central Tel Aviv announcing the opening of an Iranian embassy that met with disbelief and curiosity turned out to be a hoax, organizers of the eye-catching stunt have said.

"Opening here soon - Embassy of Iran in Israel," proclaimed the five-storey tall hoarding emblazoned with the Iranian and Israeli flags this week. 

The Palestinians on Thursday asked the United Nations to allow their flag to be raised at the world body ahead of next month's meeting of heads of state.

The move comes as the Palestinians seek to bolster their bid for statehood despite fierce opposition from Israel.

Speaker Nabih Berri has been holding contacts with Lebanese political parties to revive the all-party talks that he had launched in 2006, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

Berri has been holding consultations to bring the rival politicians on the dialogue table either in Ain el-Tineh or in parliament, the daily said.

An Israeli air strike hit a Hamas facility in Gaza overnight after Palestinians fired a rocket into southern Israel, the army said in a statement early Thursday.

"In response, the Israel Air Force targeted a Hamas weapon manufacturing facility located in the central Gaza Strip," it said.

Some 35 aid groups from around the world, including ActionAid and Oxfam, launched a joint call Wednesday to end Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is in dire need of reconstruction.

Last summer's devastating war in Gaza caused mass casualties, killing 2,251 Palestinians, including more than 500 children. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side, including 67 soldiers.