Head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora stressed on Friday that the March 14 forces will remain committed to the authority of the state throughout all of its endeavors, while highlighting the values of democracy and dialogue.

He said: “Our hand is extended to the other camp only under the authority of the state.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has criticized Israel's insistence that the Palestinians publicly declare Israel to be a Jewish state.

Kerry said Thursday that recognition had already been made in U.N. resolutions and by the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and it is a mistake for Israel to keep insisting on it as the two sides work towards a two-state peace agreement.

Around 1,000 people demonstrated Friday near the Israeli embassy in Amman to protest the killing of a Jordanian judge by Israeli soldiers, demanding a peace deal between the countries be annulled.

Israeli troops shot 38-year-old Raed Zeiter, a Palestinian-Jordanian, at a border crossing on Monday, saying he attacked them and igniting a diplomatic row between Israel and Jordan.

A truce declared by Gaza militants appeared to be holding on Friday with the Israeli military reporting no fresh rocket fire during the night after two days of tit-for-tat violence.

"It's all quiet, there has been no fire overnight," an army spokesman told Agence France Presse at 8:00 am (0600 GMT).

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said Thursday that the U.S. had yet to present a framework for a Middle East peace deal, as a deadline ending nine months of negotiations loomed.

"Until now, we haven't received the framework agreement we were promised," Abbas said at news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Ministers said Thursday that Israel would have difficulty approving a scheduled release of Palestinian prisoners if their leadership refuses to extend peace talks beyond an April deadline.

Israel committed to the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners in four tranches when talks were launched in July. It has so far released 78 of those in three batches, with Palestinians demanding the fourth -- scheduled for later this month -- include Arab Israelis as well.

Neither Israel, Gaza's Hamas rulers nor Islamic Jihad want to see the latest round of cross-border fighting escalate but each side seeks to consolidate political gains, analysts said Thursday.

"Most of the rockets fired (at Israel) by Islamic Jihad were aimed at uninhabited areas," said Adnan Abu Amr, a politics professor at Gaza's Ummah University.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc stressed on Thursday that the new government should protect Lebanon from the impact of the Syrian crisis and be able to stage the presidential elections in May.

It said after its weekly meeting: “The policy statement must not ignore the Baabda Declaration.”

Gaza's Islamic Jihad announced Thursday that an Egyptian-brokered truce had been restored following a brief but intense confrontation a day earlier when Israeli warplanes pounded the Strip after heavy cross-border rocket fire.

But the truce was being tested after the Israeli military reported than a rocket had been fired from Gaza early in the evening, bringing to four the total over the course of the day.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that the level of mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians was the highest he had ever seen.

But he insisted that he was hopeful of reaching "some kind of understanding of the road forward" as he seeks to nail down a framework to guide the stuttering Middle East peace talks.