Lecturers and students at the American University of Beirut (AUB) have launched a petition against honoring former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, accusing him of supporting Israel.

The petition, entitled "Not in our name: AUB faculty, staff and students object to honoring James Wolfensohn," had by Wednesday garnered the signatures of 90 faculty members and was being rapidly disseminated on Facebook.

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was reopened on Wednesday, ending a four-day closure amid disagreements between Egyptian and Hamas officials.

In a statement, the Hamas manager of the border crossing, Ayub Abu Shaar, said the terminal was reopened "after an agreement with the Egyptian side that all the parties agreed to."

Vandals tried to set fire to a mosque in the northern West Bank, causing damage to the inside, Palestinian security sources said on Tuesday, blaming Jewish settlers.

The attackers set fire to a number of tires inside the mosque in al-Mughayyir village, some 20 kilometers northeast of Ramallah, which damaged prayer mats inside the building.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Syrian President Bashar Assad may be encouraging unrest on the Israel-Syria frontier in a futile effort to save his regime.

"We have no choice, we have to defend our border and Assad, in my opinion will fall in the end," said Barak a day after hundreds of protesters from Syria tried to cross into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called Monday on all parties in the Arab-Israeli conflict to exercise "maximum restraint" and expressed "deep concern" about the shooting on the Golan Heights.

"The secretary-general regrets the loss of life, and extends his condolences to the families of the victims," said statement by Ban's spokesman.

Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stated on Monday that Sunday’s Naksa Day clashes at the Golan Heights are further evidence of the American administration’s agenda to “steal Arab wealth.”

He said during the opening of a conference on Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “Yesterday’s actions confirm Washington’s absolute commitment to Israel’s security.”

The clashes of the Nakba Day at Maroun al-Ras were averted on Sunday as the Lebanese army prevented demonstrations, commemorating the Naksa Day, from being held, reported the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Monday.

The army succeeded in imposing its authority over the entire region south of the Litani River, prohibiting Palestinian and Lebanese demonstrators from heading to the southern border.

Israeli gunfire killed 22 people and wounded about 350 others on Sunday as demonstrators on the Syrian side tried to cross the ceasefire line on the annexed Golan Heights, Syria's state-run SANA news agency reported.

"The protesters, hundreds strong, were both Syrian and Palestinian," SANA said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told France he is ready to attend a Paris peace conference if Israel accepts talks based on the 1967 borders, an aide told AFP on Sunday.

Nimr Hammad, a political advisor to Abbas, said the president had told French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe that he agreed officially to France's proposal to host a peace conference in Paris before the end of July.

Egyptian officials at the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip closed the crossing on Saturday, Palestinian police told Agence France Presse.

Ayub Abu Shaa, head of the Hamas police unit at Rafah, said phone calls to the Egyptian side went unanswered and a crowd of hundreds of Palestinians seeking to cross to Egypt were faced with a locked gate.