The Earth Day celebrations that are set for March 30 will take place at the Beaufort, or Shqeef, Castle in southern Lebanon, reported the National News Agency on Saturday.

Abdul Malek Sukkariyeh, the media coordinator of the rally, announced that the Lebanese army had officially permitted the staging of event.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday slammed as "hypocritical" a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution, which ordered a first probe into Israeli settlements.

"This council has an automatic majority hostile to Israel and is hypocritical," Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a statement released by his office.

Extremists must stop using the Palestinian cause to justify their acts of violence, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Wednesday after a deadly attack on a French Jewish school.

"It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life," the Palestinian premier said in a statement.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat on Monday condemned an attack by an unidentified gunman who killed four people at a Jewish school in France, including an Israeli-French dual citizen.

"We strongly condemn all terrorist operations, and in particular the attack today in Toulouse," he said in an statement.

Israel is using the Gaza Strip as a testing ground for a possible military strike on its arch foe Iran, the head of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas said on Monday.

"Israel is warming up the region for a possible war against Iran," Khaled Meshaal said in an interview with Turkey's Anatolia news agency.

Militants in the Gaza Strip fired two rockets into southern Israel on Friday, officials said, as a fledgling truce in and around the Palestinian territory firmed up.

"One rocket hit an empty field in the Eshkol region, causing no damage or injuries," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France Presse.

A Palestinian protester was bitten by an Israeli army attack dog during a protest in the West Bank village Kafr Qaddum west of Nablus on Friday, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman acknowledged to AFP that a demonstrator was "lightly wounded" by the dog.

Senior Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar pledged that the "principles and strategy of the Palestinian Islamic resistance will not change," during a visit to Tehran on Thursday, Iranian media reported.

Zahar, who is meeting Iranian officials, arrived in Tehran shortly after a fragile truce between Israel and Gaza-based militants was announced, ending four days of bloodshed.

A fragile truce that ended four days of violence between Israel and Gaza militants appeared to be largely holding on Wednesday, despite sporadic rocket fire and air raids.

Israeli police said a rocket was fired from Gaza at the southern city of Beersheva on Wednesday evening, but was brought down by the Iron Dome missile defense system with no reports of casualties.

Syria condemned on Tuesday Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip that killed 25 Palestinians, calling on world powers to act urgently to put an end to them.

Syria "roundly condemns Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and urges the international community to undertake urgent steps to put an end to these activities and to sanction those responsible," said a foreign ministry statement.