Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi returned to Beirut on Saturday afternoon after his controversial visit to Jerusalem, but rejected to make any statement upon his arrival at the Rafic Hariri International Airport.

"Al-Rahi returned to Beirut at 4:30pm on board a private jet coming from the Jordanian capital Amman,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

Hizbullah announced on Saturday its rejection of the presence of “Israeli agents” in Lebanon, in an apparent response to Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi “who went to the Palestinian occupied territories to convince them to return" as the party said.

"Someone went to occupied Palestine to convince some agents who withdrew with the enemy's soldiers in May 2000 to return to Lebanon,” Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Ali Meqdad said at a party event in the Bekaa city of Baalbek, expressing that “this issue has annoyed” him.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Friday said the Lebanese state must not deal with its citizens who fled to Israel in 2000 as “criminals,” noting that they are not the ones who have “impeded the presidential election.”

During a visit to the Druze village of Isfiya near the northern Israeli city of Haifa, al-Rahi said he was “profoundly hurt” by those who have criticized his historic visit to Israel and the Holy Land.

Israeli soldiers foiled a suicide attack Friday, arresting a Palestinian in the West Bank who had a dozen pipe bombs hidden under his coat, the army spokesperson said.

The soldiers arrested the man as he approached an army checkpoint "wearing a suspiciously large coat" in the sweltering heat, and found 12 pipe bombs strapped to his body.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to convince Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to be a candidate in the race for president, media said on Friday.

Israeli media began reporting Netanyahu's last-minute attempt on Tuesday, when candidates had to present 10 MPs' signatures to be eligible for the position.

Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas will pray for peace at the Vatican on June 8, the Holy See said Thursday.

Pope Francis had invited the pair to his home for a "heartfelt prayer" for peace during his three-day trip to the region, and the meeting "will take place on June 8, during the afternoon," a date "accepted by both parties," the Vatican said in a note.

Two suspected Jewish extremists have been charged with racially motivated attacks against Arab-owned property, the justice ministry said Thursday, after a spate of vandalism.

A 16-year-old arrested earlier this month for scrawling graffiti on and smashing the door and windows of a dentist's practice in Yokneam, an Arab Druze town in northern Israel, was charged on Thursday, the ministry said.

Israel's army has suspended a non-combat soldier seen firing his weapon during clashes in the West Bank this month in which two Palestinian teenagers were killed, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The report was published in Haaretz amid a military police probe into footage from two CCTV cameras that appeared to show the shooting of the two teens was unprovoked, taking place during a lull in the clashes.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi celebrated mass with exiled Lebanese on Wednesday as part of his controversial trip to Israel.

Hundreds of Lebanese Maronites came to Saint Peter's church in the village of Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where Christ is said to have delivered many of his most famous teachings.

Israeli soldiers raided the offices of a Palestinian newspaper in the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday, ordering them to stop printing publications by the Islamist movement Hamas, managers said.

"Officers informed us that Israel would not allow the printing and distribution of Falastin, Al-Resala, and Al-Istiqlal," three Hamas newspapers, the Al-Ayyam's managers said in a statement.