Gaza militants fired a rocket at southern Israel on Monday but it landed in open ground in the Negev desert, injuring nobody, the military said.

"A rocket fell in the Shaar Hanegev region; there were no casualties and no damage," a spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Israel has closed a controversial wooden access ramp to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City on public safety concerns, police said on Monday in a move likely to spark a backlash.

"Based on an order from the city council, they have closed the ramp," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse, referring to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation which is responsible for the upkeep of the structure, known as the Mughrabi ramp.

A woman was injured after a rocket fired in southern Lebanon landed in a Lebanese village near the border with Israel, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

The Katyusha rocket, fired from al-Qaysiya valley in Majdal Selem, landed in the village of Houla near the border with Israel.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is doomed and his exit is a "blessing" for the Middle East, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying Sunday.

"A downfall of Assad would be a blessing for the Middle East," Barak was quoted as saying by the Austria Press Agency (APA) at an event in Vienna.

France's ambassador to Israel, Christophe Bigot, met Sunday with a senior rabbi to seek his approval for the release of a French-Palestinian convicted of trying to assassinate the religious leader.

Bigot met with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, along with interior minister and Shas chief Eli Yishai, to discuss the early release of Salah Hamouri.

Leading Republican White House contender Newt Gingrich has stood by remarks that Palestinians are an "invented" people, which have sparked outrage as he seemed to call into question long-held U.S. policy on statehood.

"Is what I said factually correct? Yes. Is it historically true? Yes," Gingrich said during a thorny moment in the latest debate among the Republicans vying to challenge President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Africa to discuss illegal migration from the continent to the Jewish state, he said on Sunday, as his cabinet approved new measures to combat the problem.

Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting to approve ways to deal with an influx of illegal migrants, Netanyahu announced "I intend to travel to Africa later to discuss and advance procedures for returning them (migrants) to Africa."

Hizbullah criticized on Saturday military tribunal judge Alice Shabtini’s decision to release six convicted Israeli spies, questioning her motives and deeming the incident as a dangerous development, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

The Hizbullah-backed al-Manar television station reported: “This is a dangerous precedent seeing as the accused only served a little more than a month of their 5 to 10-year sentences.”

A Palestinian father and his daughter were wounded as their home was hit in an Israeli air raid on Gaza City early on Sunday, medics said.

They said the two were wounded in the Zeitun area of Gaza City when a missile struck, apparently targeting a neighboring building.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul went sightseeing in Vienna rather than take part in a lunch in the Austrian capital also attended by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a report said Saturday.

Both men, in town for the two-day World Policy Conference, were on Austrian President Heinz Fischer's lunch guest list on Friday.