France on Tuesday said it had transferred 10 million euros ($13 million) in budget assistance to the Palestinian Authority and urged the United States and Gulf countries to also send more aid.

The assistance is aimed at helping the Palestinian Authority in its "delicate financial situation", French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in a statement.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Tuesday called on the Palestinian people to “hold on to their rights and to continue the struggle,” condemning the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and describing him as “an expert in bloodletting.”

“Netanyahu – who is an expert in bloodletting – is pouring out all his wrath on besieged Gaza after he failed to market his idea about a military strike against Iran,” Jumblat said in a communiqué issued by the PSP.

An Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip killed the head of the Popular Resistance Committees militant group Friday, the movement said.

The PRC said General Secretary Zohair al-Qaisi was one of two Palestinians killed in the strike, along with fellow-member Mahmoud Halani, hours after Palestinians fired mortar rounds into Israel.

Pakistan has charged Osama bin Laden's three widows with illegal entry, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Thursday, without saying when it had done so or when a trial would begin.

Pakistan took the al-Qaida chief's wives -- two Saudis and a Yemeni -- and around 10 of their children into custody after U.S. Navy SEALs killed him at his house in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad on May 2, 2011.

Amman is seeking ways of coaxing Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to return to talks, Jordan's top diplomat said on Wednesday after meeting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Negotiators from both sides held five rounds of "exploratory talks" in January under the sponsorship of Jordan and the Middle East peacemaking Quartet with the aim of finding a way back to direct negotiations which collapsed in 2010.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stated on Monday that his party will not “stoop so low as to respond to some thugs” who have recently criticized his positions on Syria.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “Such slogans only reflect their political bankruptcy and their claims of defiance are really aimed at achieving Israeli goals.”

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed on Sunday that Jerusalem belongs to Palestine, Arabs, and the Muslims.

He said: “The choice to hold negotiations to return Jerusalem to Palestine are unrealistic because Israel considers the city as its permanent capital.”

President Michel Suleiman noted on Friday that Lebanon is witnessing a period of stability despite the unrest in the region, hoping that any action regarding oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean would not take place against the country’s interests.

He said: “Any violation of our petroleum rights will lead to war.”

The Palestinian leadership on Tuesday called on the U.N. Security Council to visit the occupied territories to see the impact of Israel's settlement campaign.

The Palestinian U.N. envoy, Riyad Mansour, made the request as U.N. under secretary general for political affairs, B. Lynne Pascoe, told the Security Council that events in Gaza and the West Bank are "dangerous and ultimately unsustainable."

Qatar urged the United Nations on Sunday to investigate Jewish settlement expansion in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, warning that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories was unacceptable.

"We must act quickly to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem," said Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, at the International Conference on Jerusalem in Doha.