An Israeli force has advanced on Friday towards al-Wazzani border region without crossing the technical fence and the Blue Line, the National News Agency reported.

"Fourteen members and three armored vehicles advanced towards the east bank of the river,” the NNA elaborated.

Israeli President Shimon Peres will visit Brussels next week to lobby the European Union to list Hizbullah as a terrorist organization, his office said on Friday.

Peres' office said the Israeli president would also meet Bulgarian counterpart Rosen Plevneliev and other leaders of the European bloc during his March 5-12 trip.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday came under withering criticism from Israel, Washington and the United Nations for comments branding Zionism a "crime against humanity."

The storm surrounding the comments is likely to dominate Friday's visit to Ankara by the new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is due to hold talks there on the Syrian crisis.

Israeli tank fire wounded three Palestinians near central Gaza's border with the Jewish state on Friday, a Palestinian medical official said.

"Three farmers, around 20 years of age, were moderately wounded by a tank shell and taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza City," health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told Agence France Presse, adding the men had been working in fields east of east of El-Bureij refugee camp when they were hurt.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has banned settler housing tenders being issued for the West Bank and east Jerusalem when U.S. President Barack Obama visits this month, a daily said Friday.

Netanyahu had told officials the "suspension" did not amount to a freeze in settlement construction, and that it would only be in place up until the end of Obama's trip to avoid "embarrassing" leaders, Maariv newspaper reported.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch has arrested a Palestinian in southern Lebanon on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, The state-run National News Agency reported Friday.

NNA said Mohammed Kamal Rahil, 29, was arrested by a patrol in the area of Burj al-Shamali in the southern district of Tyre.

Israeli supporters of Jonathan Pollard, the American jailed as an Israeli spy, plan protests calling for his release ahead of President Barack Obama's visit next month an organizer said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem city council moved to award a medal to Pollard, who is serving a life sentence.

Israel's health ministry said on Thursday the cause of a Palestinian prisoner's death remains unclear following tests on samples from his body, after Palestinian charges he was tortured in detention.

Two other Palestinian inmates, meanwhile, have suspended their hunger strike, an Israeli prisons official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing alliance was to reopen talks on Thursday with a possible coalition partner, two days before an initial deadline to form a new government, officials said.

Likud spokeswoman Noga Katz told Agence France Presse that alliance negotiators would meet representatives of the centrist Yesh Atid party for what media said would be their first talks in two weeks.

Two Palestinians held in Israeli custody without trial have ended their hunger strike but are still being treated in civilian hospitals, an Israeli prison official said on Thursday.

Jaafar Ezzeddine and Tariq Qaadan had "started eating yesterday," Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told Agence France Presse.