Julie Abou Araj, an Israeli reporter, denied obtaining information from the Israeli Mossad on an assassination bid targeting General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, questioning the timing of the report hours ahead of Dahr al-Baydar blast.

“I was surprised to read an article attributed to me concerning an alleged document over an assassination bid targeting Ibrahim,” Abou Araj, who is of Lebanese origins and holds the Israeli citizenship since 2000, told An Nahar newspaper in a letter published on Saturday.

The West Bank community of Battir, granted UNESCO endangered World Heritage status on Friday, is famous for its Roman-era irrigation system that is under threat from the Israeli separation barrier.

The U.N. cultural agency's World Heritage Committee granted protected status to the agricultural community south of Jerusalem, where Israel plans to build part of the barrier, after an emergency nomination by Palestinian officials.

Iran has sentenced to 10 years in prison a man convicted of spying for Britain and gave another a five-year jail term for allegedly collaborating with Israel, media said Friday.

The report carried by the official news agency IRNA came after Britain announced on Tuesday plans to reopen its embassy in Tehran, ending a three-year diplomatic freeze.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki on Friday accused Israel of overreacting in its response to three missing teenagers and said it had yet to prove Hamas was behind their disappearance.

But Malki said if it is shown that the Islamist movement abducted the teens, that would threaten the Palestinian unity government formed this month.

An armed group affiliated with the Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades is plotting to target a high-ranking security figure reportedly General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, media reports said on Friday.

Julie Abou Araj, an Israeli reporter, obtained the information from Israeli Mossad document, An Nahar newspaper reported.

Israeli soldiers killed a 14-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Friday as they pressed a crackdown on the Islamist movement Hamas in their search for three missing teenagers.

Troops also wounded two Palestinians in a refugee camp just outside Jerusalem, medical sources said, as clashes flared during the massive military operation in which forces have detained 330 Palestinians over the past week.

A Lebanese shepherd thought to have been kidnapped in southern Lebanon on Thursday had in fact been hiding from Israeli soldier fire, reported LBCI television.

It said that Mohammed Hashem had hidden when Israeli troops near the Shebaa region had opened fire.

Israeli troops have arrested some 30 Palestinians in the West Bank as they ramped up a search for three teenagers believed kidnapped by Hamas, the army said on Thursday.

The arrests overnight raised the number of Palestinians detained since the youths went missing a week ago to 280, around three-quarters of them members of the Islamist Hamas movement, a statement said.

The Maronite bishops synod reiterated on Thursday Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi's stance regarding the ongoing presidential vacuum, considering that the delay in electing a new head of state violates the constitution and the national pact.

“The absence of the head of state poses a threat to the country,” the synod said after its annual retreat.

Israel fears that a jihadist offensive that has swept up swathes of Iraq may prompt concessions to arch-foe Iran from its longtime ally the United States.

"If Washington needs Tehran's help to solve the Iraq crisis, the United States will need to be more flexible in negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme," public radio cited a senior official as saying.