A U.N. rights expert who probes Israel's conduct towards Palestinians on Friday accused the Jewish state of a campaign of ethnic cleansing and apartheid policies.

"The realities on the ground are worsening from the point of view of both international law and from the point of view of the Palestinian people," Richard Falk, an 82-year-old American who is an emeritus law professor at Princeton University, told reporters.

Israel's spy agency Mossad has concluded eight Iranian Jews who had tried to emigrate to Israel in the 1990s were murdered en route, the prime minister's office said on Friday.

The announcement came as Iran marked the Persian New Year, and as Israel chided Western powers for negotiating with the Jewish state's arch-foe Tehran.

Israel said Friday it had uncovered a new Gaza "terrorist" tunnel reaching into the Jewish state, but Hamas said the tunnel was old and had been exposed by storms.

The tunnel "reaches hundreds of meters (yards) into Israel" from the besieged Palestinian enclave, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told reporters, adding that it was designed for carrying out a "terrorist attack".

Israel has progressed with plans for more than 2,000 new homes in six West Bank settlements, an official said Thursday, in a move likely to further endanger peace talks.

Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the defense ministry unit responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said a ministry committee had furthered existing plans for 2,269 homes at a meeting last month.

An EU parliamentary delegation on Thursday urged Israel to release long-term Palestinian prisoners, saying it was crucial to move a fragile Middle East peace process forward.

"We believe that the release of prisoners... is central to the peace process," said Emer Costello, who headed the EU delegation on a three-day fact-finding mission on Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

UNIFIL Commander Major-General Paolo Serra said on Thursday that Hizbullah and Israel are not interested in escalating the situation after the Golan incident.

Israeli public radio quoted Paolo Serra, commander of U.N. peacekeeping troops in Lebanon, as saying Hizbullah too was unlikely to want a full-scale confrontation.

Israel granted final approval Wednesday for plans to build another 186 new homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, a city Councillor told Agence France Presse.

Yosef Pepe Alalu said the city's local planning council had granted "final approval" to plans to build 40 new homes in Pisgat Zeev and 146 in Har Homa.

A Jordanian soldier jailed for life for the murder of seven Israeli schoolgirls, who had been on a hunger strike for five days, was hospitalized Wednesday after his health deteriorated, police said.

"Ahmad Dakamseh is currently being hospitalized after his health deteriorated because he had been refusing to eat or take medicine since Friday," a statement said.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager in the southern West Bank on Wednesday, sources on both sides told Agence France Presse.

"Yussef Sami Shawamreh, 15, was killed by the Israeli army near the separation barrier, close to Al-Ramadin village," a Palestinian security source said, indicating that the body was still with the army.

The Israeli army stepped up security measures on Wednesday along its border with Lebanon and the Golan Heights, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The NNA said that Israeli armored personnel carriers deployed heavily in the occupied Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights.