A top aide to President Cristina Kirchner offered assurances Monday that journalists enjoy "full security" in Argentina after a reporter who revealed the suspicious death of a key prosecutor fled to Israel.

Damian Pachter left Argentina on Saturday, saying he had received threats and was followed after being the first to report the sudden death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

Israel has sent a strong warning to Lebanon that it would respond to any attack by Hizbullah on Israel whether on its territories or abroad, Western diplomatic sources said.

The sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published on Monday that the warning was delivered to the Lebanese authorities by several ambassadors based in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended his decision to accept a controversial invitation to address the U.S. Congress that has sparked a bitter row with the White House.

Netanyahu was unrepentant as he met with ministers at Israel's weekly cabinet session.

Hizbullah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem stressed on Sunday that the Israeli airstrike in Syria's Quneitra is a direct assault against the party.

“There are huge similarities between the Israelis and the takfiri groups,” Qassem said during a popular rally to mourn the party fighters who were killed the raid last week.

Israel's largest book chain has dropped plans for an in-store promotion of the latest edition of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, saying the edition would be sold only online. 

The issue, going on sale in the Jewish state by Steimatzky on Monday, is the first published since a deadly attack on the magazine's Paris offices on January 7 and has a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover. 

The United Nations has accused Israel of illegally demolishing the homes of 77 Palestinians, mostly children, this week in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

"In the past three days, 77 Palestinians, over half of them children, have been made homeless," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement issued Friday evening.

The foreign policies of Saudi King Abdullah, who passed away on Thursday, translated into a powerful assertion of Saudi Arabia's influence around the Middle East.

He floated the idea of the Arab Peace Initiative when he was crown prince at the 2002 Arab League summit that was held in Beirut.

Saudi King Abdullah, who passed away on Thursday, had the aim to modernize the kingdom to face the future. He was also a committed supporter of dialogue to solve conflicts.

In 2008, Abdullah made an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians and Jews — the first such proposal from a nation with no diplomatic ties to Israel and a ban on non-Muslim religious services and symbols.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag held talks on Friday with Prime Minister Tammam Salam on the latest developments in Lebanon, most notably Israel's strike against a Syria's Quneitra region.

She said: “I reiterated the statement of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging all parties to refrain from any actions that could directly or indirectly lead to an escalation of the current situation.”

Israel's Arab parties have joined forces ahead of a snap election in March, forming a united list that observers say could win at least 10 seats in parliament.

The joint list could boost voter turnout among Arab Israelis, who represent around 20 percent of the Jewish state's population, according to polls.