A Palestinian Christian couple from the Cremisan Valley, threatened by Israel's West Bank separation barrier's proposed route, said they will alert Pope Francis to its perils when they have lunch with him Sunday.

"We will tell the Holy Pope our concerns about Israeli threats to confiscate the whole Cremisan area and to build a wall," Juliette Abu Mohor said at 

Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket which struck southern Israel on Friday, without causing casualties or damage, following a weeks-long lull, the army said.

A spokeswoman told AFP it struck open ground in the Shaar Hanegev area.

Fearing disruption by Jewish extremists when Pope Francis visits Jerusalem this weekend, police said on Friday they would issue restraining orders against 10 more activists, bringing the total to 15.

And just two days before the pope's arrival, police said that offensive "anti-Christian graffiti" was discovered on the outer wall of a church in the southern desert city of Beersheva, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

Jordan has arrested two Israelis and a Briton suspected of involvement in fraud and counterfeiting currency, a security official said on Friday.

The men, arrested by security services Wednesday, are "being detained in a hotel, and not jail, for their own safety," the official said without explaining why they might be in danger.

Fearing disruption by Jewish extremists when Pope Francis visits Jerusalem, police said on Friday they would issue restraining orders against 10 more rightist activists, bringing the total to 15.

"Yesterday the head of the Jerusalem district mentioned that there would be a further 10," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse on Friday. He did not give further details.

The United States is alone in helping Nigeria locate more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamists, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday, despite help on the ground from Britain, France and Israel.

With 80 military personnel sent to neighboring Chad for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, the United States is the biggest foreign participant in the effort against the militant group Boko Haram.

Palestinian Roman Catholic priests urged Pope Francis Thursday to press Israel to give them freedom of movement during the pontiff's upcoming visit, particularly permission to travel to Jerusalem.

"According to the State of Israel, the illegal occupier, we do not have the right to travel to Jerusalem without permission from the Israeli army," some 20 priests of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem wrote in a letter addressed to Francis.

The Vatican's Secretary of State on Thursday defended the Palestinians' right to a "sovereign and independent" homeland and said he hoped Pope Francis's upcoming visit would lead to "courageous decisions" for peace.

"We know that the pope is going to a particularly suffering land," Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whose role is equivalent to that of a prime minister, told Vatican television ahead of the pope's three-day visit starting on Saturday.

The European Union has banned the import of poultry and eggs from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, Israeli news website Walla reported on Thursday.

The 28-nation bloc informed the Israeli agriculture ministry that it recognized its veterinary supervision only within the Jewish state's pre-1967 borders and that settlement poultry produce therefore did not meet public health regulations for import, the website said.

Several hundred Christians from the Gaza Strip have been allowed to leave the besieged Palestinian territory to travel to the West Bank for Pope Francis's upcoming visit, officials said Thursday.

"Israel allowed around 650 Christians in Gaza to travel to the West Bank during the pope's visit" this weekend, a security official told AFP .