An Israeli minister on Friday urged French Jews to flee to Israel after a suspected Islamist attacked a factory near Lyon and pinned a severed head to the gates.

"I call on the Jews of France – come home! Anti-Semitism is rising, terror is increasing," immigration minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party said in a statement.

The Vatican came under fire from Israel Friday after signing a historic first accord with Palestine, two years after officially recognizing it as a state.

The accord, which covers the activities of the Church in the parts of the Holy Land under Palestinian control, was the first since the Vatican recognized Palestine as a state in February 2013.

A Palestinian who opened fire on Israeli troops at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank died on Friday after being shot and wounded, the army said.

"I can confirm that he is dead," a spokeswoman told AFP hours after the shooting, without giving further details.

The White House said Thursday that efforts to have Israel charged with war crimes at the International Criminal Court were "counterproductive" and would be opposed by Washington.

The United States has "made clear that we oppose actions against Israel at the ICC as counterproductive," National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey told AFP.

Days before the deadline for an Iranian nuclear deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told young pilots Thursday that they would be at the forefront of safeguarding Israel.

"Foremost among the threats endangering our security is the Iranian effort to arm itself with a nuclear weapon," a statement from Netanyahu's office quoted him as telling newly-graduated pilots receiving their wings.

A joint Israeli-Palestinian poll published Thursday shows dwindling support on both sides for a Palestinian state alongside Israel as a solution to the conflict.

The survey, by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, shows 51 percent of Israeli respondents in favor of what is known as the two-state solution, down from 62 percent last June.

Israel on Thursday released a prominent Hamas leader in the West Bank, the Islamist group said, a year after his arrest along with hundreds of others following the killing of three Israeli teenagers.

Hamas says Hassan Yusef, who has spent years in Israeli jails and was elected to the Palestinian parliament in 2006 while in Israeli custody, has worked entirely in the political wing of the movement.

The Palestinian Authority on Thursday presented a first batch of evidence to the International Criminal Court in support of its campaign to have Israel investigated for alleged war crimes.

"The state of Palestine has pledged to cooperate with the court including by providing it with relevant information and it is fulfilling its pledge today," Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki told journalists after leaving the court.

A drone launched from the Gaza Strip crashed inside Israel on Thursday, the Israeli military said, the third such incursion in just under a year, with previous incidents claimed by Hamas.

"Some kind of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was spotted entering Israeli airspace from the Strip," an army spokeswoman told AFP.

Hundreds of Eritrean asylum seekers protested in Israel Thursday to urge action against their country's regime and call for recognition as refugees.

Their demonstration came after the release of a U.N. report that provided damning details on alleged human rights abuses in the Horn of Africa nation, and with thousands of Eritreans seeking asylum in the Jewish state.