The Israeli army set up on Friday a reconnaissance air balloon near a town in southern Lebanon, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Israeli troops installed the balloon near the town of Mays al-Jabal.

Forty-three reservists and former members of an elite Israeli army intelligence unit condemned "abuses" of Palestinians in the occupied territories, in an open letter published on Friday.

The letter, addressed to Israel's prime minister, armed forces chief and head of military intelligence and distributed to media, said information gathered by Unit 8200 was used by civilian intelligence agencies to coerce Palestinians uninvolved in militant activity.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Patrice Paoli ruled out on Friday any foreign intervention in the presidential elections, saying there is no “veto” on any candidate.”

“The Lebanese should agree on a new head of state... Which is a necessity in order to rebuild the state institutions and revive them,” Paoli said in an interview published in al-Joumhouria newspaper.

Israel's justice ministry has charged a border policeman with assaulting and injuring a 15-year-old Palestinian-American dual national in July, according to the indictment seen by Agence France-Presse Thursday.

The policeman, whose name remains under a gag order, was indicted at Jerusalem magistrate's court on Wednesday for using "excessive force" that could not be justified against Tariq Abu Khder at a July 3 demonstration in the annexed east Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat.

Hamas' exiled deputy leader said on Thursday the group could be forced to negotiate directly with Israel, ahead of planned talks in Cairo to consolidate a truce.

But an Israeli minister dismissed any possibility of talking directly with the Islamist movement, whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was booed offstage at a conference for Middle Eastern Christians, causing a disruption at the gala dinner of the In Defense of Christians summit in the U.S. capital Washington.

“Tonight, we are all united in defense of Christians... Tonight, we are all united in defense of Jews. Tonight, we are all united in defense of people of good faith, who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare disagree with their religious teachings,” Cruz said on Wednesday eve.

Israel's deputy foreign minister warned Thursday that Hamas was likely to resume "violence" if it feels it has made no political gains from upcoming talks in Cairo.

Israel is likely to have committed war crimes in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said Thursday, a day after the army announced five criminal investigations into incidents involving its forces.

Israel's army has launched five criminal investigations into incidents involving its forces during the Gaza war, a top legal official said on Wednesday, two weeks after a truce took hold.

The United Nations and international rights groups have condemned Israel for numerous attacks which resulted in heavy civilian casualties, in a conflict that killed more than 2,140 Palestinians. 

Hamas's exiled deputy leader said Wednesday that indirect talks with Israel to consolidate a Gaza ceasefire are to resume in Cairo in mid-September.

Fifty days of deadly fighting between Israel and Gaza militants which killed more than 2,140 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side, ended on August 26 with an open-ended truce agreement.