The Kremlin has dismissed a report that French presidential candidate Francois Fillon was paid 50,000 euros ($54,000) to arrange a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lebanese oil magnate Fouad Makhzoumi.

Australia is close to resettling the 12,000 refugees from the war in Syria and Iraq it promised to urgently take more than a year ago, an official said Wednesday.

All 12,000 have been issued visas and more than 10,000 have already been brought from Middle Eastern refugee camps to Australia, Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement. The remainder will be resettled in the coming months, he said.

More Palestinians in east Jerusalem are applying for Israeli citizenship in hopes of swapping their vulnerable status as mere city residents for the rights and ease of travel that come with an Israeli passport.

But after long touting its offer of citizenship to them, Israel is now dragging its feet in granting it, those who track Palestinian applicants say. Lawyers said their Palestinian clients now wait months for an appointment with the Interior Ministry and an average of three years for a decision.

If Hamas in Gaza or Hizbullah in Lebanon go to war with Israel, they could find their usual targets empty.

Israel is drawing up contingency plans to evacuate up to a quarter-million civilians from border communities to protect them from attacks from Hamas, Hizbullah or other Islamic militant groups.

Israel has concluded that Hizbullah's top military commander Mustafa Badreddine was killed in Syria last year by rivals within the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Israel's military chief said Tuesday.

The Israeli military has confirmed that a drone crashed in Syria earlier this week in unclear circumstances.

In a statement, the military said the "Skylark" went down on Sunday and that the incident was being investigated. Tuesday's statement said there is "no risk of a breach of information."

Syrian government forces launched a counter-attack against rebels in Damascus on Tuesday, following a rebel suicide car bombing and another insurgent assault earlier in the day in the country's capital, media reports said.

It was the second attempt by rebels in three days to penetrate Damascus' defenses.

The Islamic militant group Hamas has drafted a new political program it hopes will improve ties with neighboring Egypt and the West, and present a more moderate image that will help it get off Western terrorism lists.

The internationally isolated group, which has ruled the Gaza Strip for the past decade, characterizes itself in the manifesto as a Palestinian resistance movement against Israeli occupation, dropping references to holy war against Jews. It also raises the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

David's Sling, a joint U.S.-Israeli missile interceptor meant to counter medium-range missiles possessed by Hizbullah, will be operational in early April, completing Israel's multi-layer defense system, a senior Israeli air force official said on Monday.

This marks the completion of Israel's missile defense system, he said.

The foreign and defense ministers from Japan and Russia met in Tokyo on Monday, with both sides expressing hope that discussions on joint development of islands claimed by both countries might help them move closer to resolving the territorial dispute preventing them from forging a peace treaty.

The talks are the first "two-plus-two" meeting since Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.