U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's fourth visit to Lebanon, which starts on Friday, is expected to focus on the controversial Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and the deadly crisis in n Syria.

A government source told Agence France Presse that Ban was expected to address Lebanon's duties to the STL that has charged four Hizbullah operatives in the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri.

Israel's Supreme Court has rejected constitutional challenges to a law that makes it more difficult for Palestinians to get permission to live with their Israeli spouses inside Israel.

The ruling indicates that six judges ruled in favor of maintaining the law late Wednesday. Five were against.

Military Prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr charged on Wednesday a former employee with state-run telecom operator Ogero with spying for Israel, the National News Agency reported.

NNA, which did not identify the man, said Saqr charged him for allegedly meeting with Israeli officers abroad and providing them with information on the telecom sector in return for money.

Egyptian Islamists and other activists vowed Wednesday to prevent Israelis from making an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of a 19th-century Jewish holy man in the Nile Delta.

Pilgrimage opponents have decided to stage protests on roads leading to the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira in the village of Daymouta, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of Cairo, said Gamal Heshmat of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group which is the country's best organized political movement.

Three Palestinian cars were set alight overnight in a village in the northern West Bank, a local official and police said in what appeared to be the latest "price tag" attack.

The incident took place in Deir Istiya village, 15 kilometers southwest of Nablus and sandwiched between the Ariel settlement bloc and the Karnei Shomron bloc.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday opportunities to resume peace talks with Israel should be seized, but played down prospects for success.

"We will keep coordinating with King Abdullah II, and we welcome any chances provided by Jordan to back peace efforts," Abbas said after meeting the monarch in Amman, according to a palace statement.

Israel is preparing to receive Syrian Alawite refugees on the occupied Golan Heights when the regime of President Bashar Assad collapses, Israel's army chief of staff Benny Gantz said on Tuesday.

"On the day the Assad regime falls, it is expected to harm the Alawite clan. We are preparing to receive Alawite refugees on the Golan Heights," he told MPs at the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defense, in remarks communicated by a spokesman

Security forces were on Tuesday searching for an “object” that Israeli warplanes dropped between the towns of Talousa and Houla in the South, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said the fighter jets dropped the object in a valley between the two southern towns.

The Israeli parliament passed tough new legislation targeting illegal immigration early on Tuesday, giving authorities powers to detain migrants for up to three years without charge.

The legislation, an amendment to a 1954 law originally intended to deal with Arab militants trying to infiltrate the Jewish state, was passed by 37 votes to eight.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon was on Tuesday conducting patrols along the border with Israel after the Jewish state launched huge military exercises in the occupied Shebaa Farms area and the Golan Heights, media reports said.

They said citizens in southern Lebanon heard sounds of huge explosions coming from the Farms zone.