Israel's army on Saturday forced Palestinian activists to evacuate a West Bank encampment they tried to set up to protest against settlement building, witnesses said.

Soldiers dismantled tents that were being erected in two different areas near the town of Yatta in the southern West Bank, and forced activists to leave, the Palestinian witnesses said.

A Palestinian prisoner who last year staged a hunger strike of more than 100 days was freed from an Israeli prison on Thursday and returned to his home in the Gaza Strip.

Akram al-Rikhawi was shown on Palestinian television being welcomed by a large crowd of well-wishers as he crossed into Gaza after close to nine years in jail.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil revealed on Thursday that the tenders that Lebanon will launch to explore offshore oil and gas will be of high significance.

“The tenders will be more important than those held in Israel and Cyprus as Lebanon will attract superior oil exploration companies,” Bassil said in comments published in As Safir newspaper.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati shied away on Thursday from responding to criticism over the Lebanese government's failure to issue a statement on Bulgarian accusations of Hizbullah's involvement in a deadly attack on Israeli tourists last year.

Miqati told An Nahar newspaper that he issued on Tuesday a statement “setting Lebanon's” stance from Bulgaria's accusations as soon as Sofia blamed Hizbullah for the July 2012 attack on a bus that killed five Israeli tourists at Burgas airport.

Israeli political and military leaders should be able to face charges in the event of alleged war crimes committed by soldiers, a commission of inquiry recommended in a report submitted on Wednesday.

"The law should lay out that commanders and their civilian superiors face direct criminal responsibility for crimes committed by their subordinates, or if they did not take all reasonable measures to prevent such crimes or bring the perpetrators to justice," said the report presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. President Barack Obama does not plan to use his coming trip to Israel to advance new proposals to break open the deadlock in peace talks with the Palestinians, the White House said Wednesday.

Obama will visit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time as president as soon as next month on a trip that also includes stops in the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

Reviving Middle East peace talks will be a key element of Barack Obama's first trip as president, and despite U.S. caution he will seek to build on the center's strong showing in Israel's election, analysts say.

The Palestinians were not mentioned when National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor on Tuesday announced Obama's visit to Israel early in his second term and also his first as president.

A Canadian suspect in last year's fatal bus bombing in Bulgaria was born in Lebanon and only lived in Canada for a few years as a child, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday.

"My understanding is he came to Canada as a child at the age of eight, obtained citizenship three or four years after that, and left Canada at the age of 12," Kenney said.

The European Union is unlikely to bow to U.S. pressure to brand Hizbullah a “terrorist organization” in the wake of EU member Bulgaria blaming the Lebanese group for an attack that killed five Israeli tourists, diplomats said Wednesday.

New U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the EU to follow Washington's lead by designating Hizbullah as a terrorist group in a move that will notably lead to a crackdown on its fund-raising activities.

Hizbullah denounced Israel on Wednesday for waging an "international campaign" against it after Bulgaria said the Lebanese party was behind a July bombing that killed five Israeli tourists.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, the group's number two, slammed the "international campaign of intimidation waged by Israel against Hizbullah," and said it is "ever improving its equipment and training" and that "these charges will change nothing."