Several ministries and a parliamentary committee are holding intense talks to prepare a draft-law that sets Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone but the decree is not likely to be completed by August 2 during a session of the cabinet, An Nahar daily reported Friday.

It said the meetings are being held between the representatives of the foreign, energy and economy ministries and parliament’s energy and hydraulics committee.

U.S. Ambassador Maura Connelly has reportedly asked Speaker Nabih Berri why Lebanon would not strike deals with companies to start oil exploration in its territorial waters as Israel did pending a solution to its conflict with the Jewish state on the Exclusive Economic Zone.

Media reports quoted Berri as answering Connelly that the maritime border line between Lebanon and Israel should be drawn. “If someone is seeking or working to reach a peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel to settle the oil issue, then this didn’t and won’t happen.”

Israel and the newly independent country of South Sudan have established diplomatic relations, the Israeli foreign ministry said on Thursday.

"The cooperation between the states will be based on the firm foundations that guide them in forming friendly ties, out of equality and mutual respect," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.

Dozens of demonstrators occupied the roof of the Tel Aviv stock exchange on Thursday morning, Israeli military radio reported, as protests over the high cost of living spread throughout Israel.

Protesters scaled the building a day after the powerful Histadrut labor union threw its support behind the demonstrators, who have set up tent cities across Israel to protest the high cost of housing.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel on Thursday without causing injuries or damage, the Israeli military said.

The rocket landed in an open field in the Hof Ashkelon region, the military said, adding that the projectile was the 24th to hit Israel this month.

The U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, introduced a bill to counter a Republican-crafted legislation approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to bar defense aid to Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Yemen if groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah and Hamas are part of the government.

Kerry said the country faces "tremendous foreign policy and national security challenges worldwide, from helping countries manage peaceful, democratic transitions in the Middle East, to preventing violence, conflict, and terrorism from engulfing key partners, and to leading humanitarian responses to forestall drought, famine and natural disasters."

The Palestinians will in September approach the U.N. Security Council to seek full membership in the global body, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Wednesday.

"We are going to the Security Council through a request to the secretary general of the United Nations to seek full membership in the U.N. and recognition of Palestine on the 1967 borders," he said.

The United States strongly condemned an attack on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, saying the Lebanese government should conduct a "full investigation" into the roadside bombing.

State Department spokeswoman Heide Fulton said on Tuesday that the government should "ensure the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice."

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday warned Israel against stealing Lebanon’s maritime resources, vowing that his party will retaliate against any attack on Lebanon’s future oil and gas installations.

“I confidently say to all the countries, governments and companies that will submit tenders in order to start oil excavation that Lebanon is capable of protecting these companies and oil and gas installations,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech on the fifth anniversary of the July 2006 war.

Turkey is preparing to harden its attitude towards Israel for its refusal to apologize over last year's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, official sources said on Tuesday.

The Israeli government has to date failed to either say sorry or compensate families of the nine activists who were killed in May last year in a commando raid on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-owned ferry which was leading the convoy.