President Michel Suleiman slammed on Friday Israel's decision to construct 2,600 new settlements in the West Bank.

He said: “The decision reveals the enemy's rejection of international efforts to reach peace in the region.”

Two-thirds of Israelis are opposed to the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank, a poll showed on Friday.

According to the results of a Maagar Mohot survey published in Maariv newspaper, when asked if they would support the establishment of such a state, 66 percent said they would not, while 11 percent said they would.

Israel has urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn Hizbullah for allegedly building its arsenal to unprecedented levels, saying the party now possessed 50,000 missiles capable of hitting Israel.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to the 15-nation council on Thursday that the buildup was in clear violation of Resolution 1701.

Israel has approved plans to build another 523 homes in the West Bank, settlers said on Thursday, in the first step towards a new settlement "city" that drew furious condemnation from the Palestinians.

"After years, we are happy to announce that the government of Israel has decided to build a city in Gush Etzion," David Perel, head of the the regional council there, told AFP.

There are some 11 million Palestinians scattered around the world, including more than five million refugees living throughout the Middle East.

Their plight has made headlines in Syria, where the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugee UNRWA says as many as 100,000 Palestinians may have fled the Yarmuk refugee camp in Damascus in recent days because of fighting.

Israel will be "held accountable" for its settlement building, a senior Palestinian official said Thursday after Israel pushed forward plans for more than 5,000 new settler homes.

"The settlers and the government of Israel should know they will be held accountable," Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for president Mahmoud Abbas, told Agence France Presse shortly after Israel reportedly okayed initial plans for a new settlement city in the southern West Bank.

Israeli attacks on journalists and media facilities in the Gaza Strip during an eight-day flare up last month "violated the laws of war," Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

But Israel rejected the findings, saying the military had adhered to international law during the conflict.

The United Nations on Wednesday called on Israel to cancel plans to build thousands of new settler homes in the occupied Palestinian territories, warning it could be "an almost fatal blow" to peace hopes.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon's political chief also told the U.N. Security Council that Israel must resume the transfer of frozen tax and customs money to the struggling Palestinian Authority "without delay."

Israel on Wednesday issued tenders to build another 1,048 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, housing ministry spokesman Ariel Rosenberg told AFP.

Rosenberg said an unspecified number of homes would go up in the east Jerusalem settlement suburb of Har Homa, but construction would be "mainly in Beitar, Karnei Shomron, Givat Zeev and Efrat," in the West Bank.

Israel's plans for new settler homes are accelerating Palestinian moves to appeal to the Hague court over Jewish settlement policy, a senior official told AFP on Wednesday.

"The intensification of settlement activity and all the Israeli actions, from killings to arrests, are pushing us to accelerate our recourse to the International Criminal Court," said Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Shtayyeh.