Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hailed the verdict of a New York court which found the Palestinian leadership responsible for six deadly attacks in Jerusalem that killed Americans.

The decision clearly showed the Palestinian leadership was responsible for the bloodshed, exposing its move to join the International Criminal Court to sue Israel as a sham, Netanyahu said in a statement issued just hours after the verdict.

Israeli troops shot dead a 19-year-old Palestinian during clashes Tuesday at a refugee camp in the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, medics said.

Jihad al-Jafari was killed after Israeli troops entered the Dheishe camp before dawn, sparking clashes with stone-throwing locals, according to medics and witnesses.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Iran was a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his secret services, according to reports Monday citing leaked documents.

The inconsistency was revealed in a cache of communications between South African intelligence services and their global partners -- including Israel's Mossad and America's CIA -- that were leaked to Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera and Britain's The Guardian daily.

The number of new homes under construction in Jewish settlements on the Israel-occupied West Bank rose last year by 40 percent, the Peace Now anti-settlements watchdog said Monday.

The Israeli group said the construction of 3,100 "residential units" began last year in West Bank settlements, while 4,485 tenders for construction there and in east Jerusalem settlement districts were launched in 2014 -- "a record high for at least a decade."

Israel on Monday cut off power to two Palestinian cities in the northern West Bank for an hour over unpaid electricity bills, officials on both sides said. 

The power cut took place in the northern city of Nablus as well as in Jenin, local Palestinian officials told Agence France-Presse saying thousands of homes were affected by the cut which Israel had warned of in advance. 

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Monday hailed a U.S. jury's order for Palestinian authorities to pay $128 million in damages to American victims of 2002-2004 attacks in Israel as a "moral victory."

"This decision constitutes above all a moral victory for the state of Israel and for victims of terrorism," Lieberman said.

Speaker Nabih Berri announced Monday that he is encouraging dialogue between Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, noting that he would endorse any agreement they might reach over the stalled presidential vote.

“We had a chance to Lebanonize the presidential election, especially as the foreign forces were preoccupied with their problems,” Berri told a delegation from the council of the Lebanese Press Syndicate that visited him in Ain al-Tineh.

Israeli forces opened fire Monday from a border settlement at Lebanese farmers who were cultivating their land in the southern town of Maroun al-Ras.

“Israeli enemy forces opened fire from the Avivim settlement at farmers in the border town of Maroun al-Ras,” Lebanon's National News Agency reported, noting that no one was injured in the incident.

Israel's internal security service said Monday it had caught 11 alleged Hamas fighters in the occupied West Bank who planned attacks against Israelis.

The group, from the city of Hebron, was arrested in January by Shin Bet agents and troops, a statement said.

Head of the parliamentary energy committee MP Mohammed Qabbani stressed that the delay in exploring Lebanon's offshore gas and oil exploration is due to technical obstacles and other unannounced interests as officials are at loggerheads over the demarcation of the 10 maritime oil exploration blocks.

“We have agreed to open the tenders for three blocks as a first step, but the main obstacles impeding the process remains the adoption of the petroleum decrees,” Qabbani said in comments published in An Nahar newspaper on Monday.