Last-ditch U.S. efforts to rescue peace talks with the Palestinians are meeting tough resistance within Israel's governing coalition, with the far right threatening to quit over the mooted concessions.

Under huge U.S. pressure to salvage the peace process, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on Friday facing the threat of his cabinet falling apart.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea revealed on Friday that he will propose to Hizbullah if he was elected as president “real partnership,” considering that the theory of “vacuum at the presidential post is better than choosing a weak head of state” has crumbled after he ran for the presidency.

“I will suggest real partnership with Hizbullah to build a state that is capable with the army's weapons as the only means to protect all the citizens,” Geagea said in an interview with As Safir newspaper.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a fresh round of U.S.-mediated talks Thursday to try to revive crisis-hit peace talks, officials said.

"The gaps are narrowing, but any speculation about an agreement are premature at this time," said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Israeli police arrested five ultra-Orthodox Jews who threw stones at them during a Jerusalem protest Thursday against a new law making men in their community subject to compulsory national service.

"Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in (the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of) Mea Sharim, stopped traffic and threw stones and bottles at police," Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse, adding that five of them were arrested.

An Israeli court Thursday found Muslim cleric Sheikh Raed Salah guilty of obstructing the work of police when they quizzed and searched his wife, the firebrand's latest run-in with authorities.

The court said Salah, an Arab-Israeli, had "interrupted" police officers when they questioned his wife at the Allenby border crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan.

A new Israeli spy satellite entered orbit early Thursday, the defense ministry said, boosting the Jewish state's ability to monitor arch-foe Iran.

The observation remote-sensing Ofek 10 satellite, launched into space on a Shavit rocket late Wednesday, outdoes earlier models with its ability to "skip" from one target to another rather than simply "sweep" areas, ministry officials told reporters.

Israeli soldiers shot and wounded three Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday near the border security fence, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

The three were in moderate condition after the incident, which occurred near Beit Hanoun, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told Agence France Presse.

Israel has asked the United Nations to take action against Hizbullah after the party's secretary-general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said that his group was behind a blast that targeted Israeli troops last month.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that Nasrallah’s admission is further evidence that Hizbullah continues to operate south of the Litani River in violation of Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between the two sides.

Washington on Wednesday denounced as "unfortunate" an order from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit his cabinet's contacts with their Palestinian counterparts.

"We are certainly aware of the announcement. We regard it as unfortunate," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, as her boss John Kerry met with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz will travel to Israel and Iran later this month, the ministry announced on Wednesday, as talks on Tehran's disputed nuclear program ended in Vienna.

"A date has not been set but the trip to Iran will probably be in late April," ministry spokesman Martin Weiss told Agence France Presse.