Israel's attorney general on Thursday charged Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with fraud and breach of trust, just over five weeks before a snap election, but dropped more serious allegations against him.

"After examining the file, I have arrived at the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to charge him in the first case and have decided to close it," Yehuda Weinstein said in a statement.

An employee for a mobile phone service company was released on bail on Thursday after he was imprisoned on charges of collaborating with Israel, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Charbel Qazzi was released from jail after paying L.L.10 million in bail.

Israeli border guards shot dead on Wednesday a Palestinian teenager armed with a fake pistol in the West Bank city of Hebron, a police spokeswoman said, adding that clashes broke out after the shooting.

"A young Palestinian man approached a post manned by border guards. One of them asked him for his identity card. The Palestinian attacked him, brandishing a gun that he aimed at the head of the border guard," the spokeswoman said.

Israeli border guards shot dead on Wednesday a Palestinian teenager armed with a pistol in the West Bank city of Hebron, sparking stone-throwing attacks on troops in the area, police and witnesses said.

"A Palestinian brandished a pistol as he approached a post of border guards, who opened fire and killed him," a police spokeswoman said.

Vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on a monastery and a Christian cemetery in Jerusalem overnight, in two apparent "price-tag" attacks, police told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"Overnight, graffiti was sprayed on the gates of the entrance of the Armenian cemetery reading 'Jesus is a son of a bitch' in Hebrew, and on a monastery belonging to the Greek Orthodox saying the same thing," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

The Palestinians could pursue Israel at the International Criminal Court if it builds new settler homes in a highly-sensitive area of the West Bank near Jerusalem, president Mahmoud Abbas warned on Tuesday.

"If Israel continues with this (settlement plan), we will respond using all methods, obviously peaceful, and including the court," the Palestinian president said in Ankara at a news conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

Iraq hosted an international conference on Israel's Palestinian and Arab prisoners on Tuesday, the latest in a series of events held in Baghdad as the country seeks to re-emerge on the regional stage.

Talks on Iran's disputed nuclear program and a summit of Arab leaders were held earlier this year in Iraq, which is still struggling with the impact of decades of violence, war and sanctions.

Israeli forces raided the offices of three Palestinian non-government organizations overnight, confiscating computers and other material, one of the groups said on Tuesday.

"At 3:00 am this morning, 11 December 2012, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights office was raided by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)," the Addameer group said on its website.

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman criticized Europe on Tuesday, saying its treatment of the Jewish state was comparable to policies during the Holocaust.

Lieberman said Europe had turned a blind eye to a speech by Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal this week, in which he said the Palestinians would not "cede an inch" of historic Palestine, which includes much of modern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday scoffed at international criticism of his plans to build settler housing on occupied land east of Jerusalem.

Speaking to foreign journalists, he compared the E1 plan to build between largely Arab east Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumin, to the accepted goal of a Palestinian state embracing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.