Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to head to Beirut next week to meet with top Lebanese officials, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.

“Abbas will visit Lebanon on Aug. 16 and 17,” Palestinian sources told the daily.

Israel's interior ministry has given final approval for the construction of 900 new homes in the east Jerusalem settlement neighborhood of Har Homa, a ministry spokeswoman told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

"This is a program which was approved by the regional (planning and construction) committee two years ago," spokeswoman Efrat Orbach said.

Israel is willing to begin new peace talks using the 1967 lines as a basis for negotiations, if the Palestinians drop their U.N. membership bid, an Israeli government official confirmed on Tuesday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official confirmed that Israel has been working with Washington and members of the international peace-making Quartet to draw up a new framework that could re-launch stalled talks.

Local Palestinian elections planned for October 22 will only take place in the West Bank and not in Gaza, a senior electoral source said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, the official said the government had informed the Central Elections Commission (CEC) of a decision taken earlier on Wednesday to limit the elections planned for October to the West Bank.

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.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday called on Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to resign, directing his message to the Arab world in his first news conference for Arab media.

Peres also voiced respect for Syrian demonstrators who he said "are fighting for peace and who want to live like human beings."

Archaeologists unearthing a biblical ruin inside a Palestinian city in the West Bank are writing the latest chapter in a 100-year-old excavation that has been interrupted by two world wars and numerous rounds of Mideast upheaval.

Working on an urban lot that long served residents of Nablus as an unofficial dump for garbage and old car parts, Dutch and Palestinian archaeologists are learning more about the ancient city of Shekhem, and are preparing to open the site to the public as an archaeological park next year.

The Syrian foreign ministry said Monday that Damascus recognizes a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital within the borders in effect prior to the 1967 Six-Day War.

"Syria recognizes a Palestinian state within the June 4, 1967 borders and east Jerusalem as its capital, and on the basis of the preservation of Palestinian legitimate rights," a statement said.

Seven people were wounded in Gaza on Sunday by what Palestinian medical sources said was an Israeli air strike, but Israel denied it had carried out any such raid.

Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in the Gaza Strip, said four children and three adults suffered moderate injuries in air strikes in the northern Beit Hanun area of the Gaza Strip.

Some 1,000 Israelis and Palestinians gathered in east Jerusalem on Friday for a protest march to support the Palestinian bid for United Nations recognition.

The marchers waved Palestinian flags and carried signs reading "marching to independence" and "only free people can negotiate for peace," an Agence France Presse photographer said.