Israel does not want to provoke a military "escalation" with Syria but will not allow it to transfer strategic arms to groups like Hizbullah, a cabinet minister said on Thursday.

"There is no need to provoke an escalation, there is no need to heat up the border with Syria, that was not our objective and it will never be," Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom told public radio.

Israel's decision to build 1,000 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem is "destroying" efforts by Washington's top diplomat to revive the peace process, a Palestinian official said on Thursday.

"We consider the recent decision of the Israeli government to build a thousand homes in east Jerusalem as effectively destroying the efforts of (U.S. Secretary of State) Kerry," top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse.

Israel is preparing to build more than 1,000 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem as the United States strives to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, an NGO said late Wednesday.

Danny Seidemann, director of Jerusalem settlement watchdog Terrestrial Jerusalem, told Agence France Presse that contracts for 300 homes in the northeastern settlement of Ramot were signed and another 797 plots were to be offered for sale in the southern Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, near the West bank city of Jerusalem.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea slammed on Wednesday Hizbullah's fighting in Syria, warning that it will incur “severe consequences” on Lebanon.

He therefore demanded the formation of a new government independent of the party's influence, while saying that the LF supports a technical extension of parliament's term instead of the adoption of the 1960 electoral law for the parliamentary elections.

Israel is gearing up for a deterioration in the regional situation, with a growing number of new threats facing the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Netanyahu made the comments as he watched an exercise simulating the response to a chemical attack on a residential neighborhood in Jerusalem as part of an annual civil defense drill.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his cabinet to stay silent on the issue of Russian missile deliveries to Syria, public radio said on Wednesday.

His remarks came after several ministers criticized Moscow's arms deals with Damascus and raised the possibility of an Israeli response should the Jewish state feel under threat.

Soldiers treated "wounded" civilians on Tuesday as Israel simulated a chemical weapons attack as part of its annual civil defense drill, which comes against a backdrop of tension on its borders with Syria and an increasingly unstable Lebanon.

In the city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, 150 troops evacuated civilians to a field hospital set up in a sports stadium and "contained" the area, simulating a chemical warhead attack, an army spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Israel "will know what to do" if Russia delivers anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, its defense minister said Tuesday, in an apparent allusion to another air strike on the war-torn neighboring country.

"The deliveries have not taken place, and I hope they do not. But if, by misfortune, they arrive in Syria, we will know what to do," Moshe Yaalon said.

A rocket was fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel late Sunday night, the state-run National News Agency reported although a high-ranking military official denied the attack.

No rocket was fired on the Jewish state, the official told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) although he confirmed that an explosion had taken place.

Hizbullah has hurled itself into the war in Syria at the behest of its mentor Iran at the risk of damaging its reputation in the Arab world, experts say.

The powerful Shiite movement has won widespread support outside Lebanon for standing up to Israel on the battlefield.