A second 'Prisoner X' was being held in top-secret conditions in the same jail where an Israeli-Australian spy took his own life in 2010, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Court documents cited by Haaretz newspaper said the prisoner was being held in another wing of Ayalon prison at the same time as Ben Zygier, an alleged Mossad spy whose mysterious arrest and subsequent suicide shocked Israel and Australia when news of it hit the headlines in February.

A 15-member Israeli commando force on Monday crossed the border of the occupied Shebaa Farms and abducted Lebanese shepherd Youssef Hussein Rhayyel who hailed from the town of Shebaa, state-run National News Agency reported.

Rhayyel was kidnapped after the force advanced 600-800 meters into Lebanon, north of the al-Marsad military post.

An Arab Israeli was sent to jail on Monday for more than two years for going to Syria where he joined rebels battling against the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Hikmat Massarwa, from Taibe village in Galilee, was given 30 months in prison by Lod District Court as part of a plea bargain in which he admitted contacts with an enemy agent, illegally leaving the country and infiltration.

Three Israeli teenagers convicted of taking part in a brutal assault on a group of Palestinian youngsters in Jerusalem last August have been given jail terms, a copy of Sunday's district court judgement showed.

Jamal Julani, 17, and three cousins, residents of Israeli-annexed Arab east Jerusalem, were attacked by dozens of Israeli youths in Zion Square, a busy bar and entertainment district of west Jerusalem.

Caretaker Premier Najib Miqati held talks on Monday with Energy Minister Jebran Bassil who warned last week that Israel's discovery of a new offshore gas field near Lebanese territorial waters means the Jewish state could siphon some of Lebanon's crude oil.

“Oil and gas exploration are a priority because we are keen on preserving our natural resources,” Miqati said in remarks published in As Safir newspaper.

The French government decided to provide the Lebanese army with heavy weapons to boost its military performance, a local newspaper reported on Monday.

An Israeli warplane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday following a malfunction although both crew members were rescued unharmed, a military spokesman told Agence France Presse.

"An F16 combat aircraft crashed earlier today into the sea after its engine malfunctioned," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to return to the Middle East later this week to resume efforts to draw Israel and the Palestinians back into direct negotiations, reports said on Sunday.

According to the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily and the left-leaning Haaretz, Kerry was to arrive in Israel towards the end of the week on what would be his sixth visit to the region in as many months.

Ismail Haniya, head of the Hamas government in Gaza, appealed in a Friday sermon to have faith in the Arab Spring despite the ouster of Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi by the army.

"Do not fear for the Palestinian cause or for the resistance (against Israel) or for Gaza. Egypt is behind us, as are the Arab and Islamic countries," Haniya said.

An Egyptian soldier was killed early Friday in coordinated rocket and machinegun attacks by Islamist militants on army checkpoints and a police base in the restive Sinai, medics said.

The soldier was killed when the militants fired on an army checkpoint near the north Sinai village of al-Gura, medics said, adding two other soldiers were wounded in the attack.