A Palestinian was killed in northern Gaza near the border with Israel on Monday, the DFLP group and medics said, in circumstances disputed by the Israeli army.

Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for Gaza's emergency services, said a man had been killed by Israeli tank fire but his body was so badly disfigured that medics were not immediately able to identify him.

Jerusalem municipality has given the green light for the construction of 11 new apartments in the Jewish settlement of Pisgat Zeev in the annexed east of the city, a councilor told Agence France Presse on Saturday.

"The municipality approved at the beginning of the week the construction of 11 apartments, as part of a project of 300 housing units supposed to be approved section by section," Pepe Alalou of the leftist Meretz party said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Europe on Wednesday to back the "Palestinian Spring" by supporting his government's bid to win a place at the United Nations.

"Today we are at the heart of the Arab Spring: we say that the hour of the Palestinian Spring has struck," he said in a speech to the parliamentary assembly of the 47-nation Council of Europe.

The United States said Wednesday it was "incoherent" for UNESCO to back the Palestinian Authority's bid to join the cultural body with the rights of a state and said it could fuel tension.

A process is underway at the U.N. Security Council to study the Palestinian request to be admitted as a member state, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will continue to work with Mideast Quartet envoy Tony Blair, his spokesman said on Wednesday, despite criticism of his stance as "pro-Israeli."

"The Palestinian presidency will continue to work with him given he is the choice of the Quartet," Nabil Abu Rudeina told Agence France Presse by telephone from Strasbourg where Abbas is currently attending a session of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe.

The executive committee of the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO on Wednesday recommended that the world body accept Palestine as a full member with the rights of a state.

The committee's member states voted by 40 votes in favor to four against -- with 14 abstentions -- to approve the Palestinian bid, which will now be submitted to the UNESCO general assembly at the end of the month for approval.

Speaker Nabih Berri criticized on Tuesday the international community’s “double standards” in dealing with Israel, accusing it of having hidden agendas in the Middle East.

He said before the Armenian parliament: “International decision-makers are placing all Arab regimes in the position of the accused in order to subject them to their will.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday urged Israel and the Palestinians to take "bold action" to end the Middle East conflict while also scolding U.S. lawmakers for blocking aid to the Palestinians.

"There is a need and an opportunity for bold action on both sides to move towards a negotiated two-state solution," Panetta told a joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza staged demonstrations on Monday in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

The rallies were called five days after the inmates went on hunger strike to protest against the solitary confinement of some of their fellow prisoners, including a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Tehran's two-day International Conference on Palestine supported in its closing statement Lebanon and its resistance against Israel.

“We support the Lebanese peoples' struggle and the Lebanese resistance against the Zionist occupiers, and we support the efforts to free the remaining land, especially Shebaa farms and the Kfarshoubahills,” the statement said.