Israeli police on Friday limited access to the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques in Jerusalem as a precautionary measure a day after clashes in east Jerusalem, a spokeswoman said.

"This Friday we are preventing access to the plaza for Muslim men less than 45 years old," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said, although she denied the restriction was linked to Thursday night's violence.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday extended the mandate of the U.N. force monitoring the ceasefire in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel by another six months.

The unanimous decision extends the mandate of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) to December 31, 2011.

Irish activists on Thursday accused Israel of sabotaging a ship that had been due to join a flotilla to challenge an Israeli blockade of Gaza, forcing the vessel's withdrawal.

The Irish Ship to Gaza (ISG) campaign said it "believes that Israel has questions to answer and must be viewed as the chief suspect in this professional and very calculating act of sabotage".

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly stated on Wednesday that Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s recent statements against the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon are aimed at “deflecting attention away from internal tensions in the party.”

She said after holding talks with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun: “We discussed the new government and I repeated the U.S. decision which is we will judge the new government by its composition, its ministerial statement, and the actions it takes.”

Controversial Arab-Israeli Islamist leader Sheikh Raed Saleh has been arrested in London after entering Britain in defiance of a government ban, Home Secretary Theresa May said Wednesday.

The British authorities have begun arrangements to deport Saleh, who is the head of the radical northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, and have launched an investigation into how he managed to enter the country, she said.

As Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji readies to visit U.S. and France, a Lebanese army delegation that recently visited Washington told officials there that the military was not willing to fight Hizbullah to serve Israel.

A high-ranking source told An Nahar daily that the delegation headed by Maj. Gen. Abdel Rahman Shehaitly was asked several questions about the alleged influence of Hizbullah on the army. But the answer was clear: “Hizbullah is a party that has a presence in Lebanon and mainly the south where it resists Israel. Is the army required to fight it to serve Israel?”

Premier Najib Miqati reiterated on Tuesday Lebanon’s “unanimous” decision to reject the naturalization of Palestinians but vowed to provide them with the “necessary attention” to resolve their plight.

During talks with the Palestinian president’s envoy, Azzam al-Ahmed, Miqati said: “The Lebanese government will work to give the humanitarian and social issues of Palestinians in the refugee camps the necessary attention in cooperation with involved international agencies.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday that Israel's diplomatic and political efforts to curb the size of a new Gaza-bound aid flotilla had been successful.

Speaking to public radio by telephone from Zagreb where he is on a visit, Lieberman said it was thanks to Israeli efforts that there were only 10 ships planning to set sail from Greece later this week.

Israel has adopted a new form of psychological warfare on Lebanon through telephoning a number of southern residents on their mobile phones and informing them that they have won a financial reward from a Saudi bank.

Israeli security sources added that the residents are then asked to call a number, 4382094678, to receive their reward.

Shaul Mofaz, head of Israel’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, on Monday hoped the Sunni majority in Syria would take power, ending the domination of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority, an outcome he said might bring an end to Syria's alliance with Shiite Hizbullah and Iran.

"The Sunnis are more moderate and this is good for Israel as it opens a possibility of future peace talks and preserving the quiet," Mofaz said in an interview with Agence France Presse.