The Israeli Supreme Court on Monday overturned a law allowing illegal immigrants to be detained without trial for three years, declaring it "unconstitutional".

The court ruled that the controversial 2012 legislation, under which 2,000 men, women and children, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, are interned, ran counter to Israeli human rights law.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Monday that the U.S.-Russian deal for Syria to destroy its chemical weapons, proved that a credible threat of force could bring about diplomatic solutions.

"The latest developments, in which a diplomatic solution is emerging for Syria to be disarmed of chemical weapons, demands determined action and will be judged over time according to results," a statement from his office quoted Yaalon as saying in an address to defense ministry staff.

Land confiscated by Israel 35 years ago to build a Jewish settlement in the West Bank will finally be returned to its Palestinians owners, the Israeli military said on Monday.

In 1978 Israel confiscated by military order land belonging to the Palestinian village of Burka in the northern West Bank.

Iran on Sunday hailed the decision of its ally Syria to join the chemical weapons convention, a day after the United Nations formally accepted its request to sign up, Fars news agency reported.

"Iran welcomes Syria's joining the chemical weapons convention," it quoted foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham as saying.

The threat of U.S. military action against Syria remains "real", Washington's top diplomat said on Sunday a day after striking a deal with Russia to destroy Damascus' chemical weapons stockpile.

"The threat of force remains, the threat is real," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at a news conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Jerusalem Sunday to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the progress made in the Middle East peace talks and on Syria, a U.S. official said.

The two men will discuss "the final status negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, following on the secretary's meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in London last Monday," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Israel on Friday closed off the Palestinian territories for 48 hours, ahead of the solemn Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur which begins at sunset.

A military spokesman told Agence France Presse that crossings were closed from midnight Thursday and would reopen at midnight on Saturday.

France has reassured President Michel Suleiman that a possible Western attack against the Syrian regime would neither target Lebanon nor Hizbullah, As Safir daily reported on Friday.

The daily's correspondent in Paris said French President Francois Hollande told Suleiman on the sidelines of the Francophone Games in the southern city of Nice that Paris was exerting all efforts to steer Lebanon clear of the developments linked to Syria and its chemical weapons.

Israel's president will award this year's Presidential Medal of Distinction to a group that includes Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.

Shimon Peres' office said Thursday that Spielberg will be recognized for his contribution to cinema and "his unique contribution to the memory of the Holocaust, to the State of Israel (and) to the Jewish people."

Bulgaria aims to open a trial by April for a bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists at an airport last year, the chief prosecutor said Thursday.

"Our ambition is to go to court... by the end of the first three months of next year at the maximum," Sotir Tsatsarov told journalists.