Israel's Shin Bet internal security service said Sunday it has arrested six members of a Hamas cell with explosive materials they planned to use in attacks inside the Jewish state.

The security forces had seized dozens of kilograms (pounds) of sulphur and 25 grams (just under an ounce) of mercury fulminate "which are used in creating explosive devices," it said in a statement.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday and urged him to renew Israel's commitment to a "two-state solution" to the Middle East conflict.

Netanyahu won re-election this week after a close-fought parliamentary campaign in which he toughened his stance, vowing he would thwart the creation of a Palestinian state.

Egypt arrested nine Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip Friday, the fishing union said, amid tense relations between Cairo and Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas.

"The Egyptian navy arrested nine fishermen while they were out fishing on the line between Gaza and Egypt," union official Nizar Ayesh told AFP.

EU foreign ministers named Fernando Gentilini on Monday as new special representative for the Middle East, filling a post vacant since early 2014 in the hope of getting the stalled peace process back on track, officials said.

Gentilini -- an Italian, as is EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini -- currently heads the EU's Western Balkans and Turkey division and his appointment will have to be confirmed by member states.

French experts have ruled out that the 2004 death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was the result of poisoning, a prosecutor told Agence France-Presse Monday.

The prosecutor of the western Paris suburb of Nanterre said the experts found there was no foul play in Arafat's death, which sparked immediate and enduring conspiracy rumors.

Final opinion polls on Friday put Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party four seats behind its center-left rival with four days to go before a general election.

Several polls released Friday -- the last day opinion surveys can be released before Tuesday's vote -- showed the Zionist Union pulling further ahead of Likud after an intense campaign.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday urged the Druze Arabs in Israel to run in the upcoming legislative polls in “unified” lists with the aim of achieving “drastic change.”

“Once again I address this appeal to the Druze Arabs in occupied Palestine, who are suffering along with their Palestinian brothers from occupation, tyranny and injustice due to the practices of Israel, which is seeking to totally eradicate the Arab identity,” said Jumblat in a statement.

Iran's top general said Wednesday his country has reached "a new chapter" towards its declared aim of exporting revolution, in reference to Tehran's growing regional influence, while hailing the role of Hizbullah in resisting Israel.

Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the nation's powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps, said: “Hizbullah and its resistance against one of the armies in the world -- that is to say the army of the Zionist regime.. is one of the Islamic revolution's miracles," he said.

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees accompanied the first aid convoy in three months to enter the besieged Yarmuk camp in the Syrian capital on Tuesday.

Pierre Krahenbuhl said it was "totally unacceptable" that some 18,000 residents of Yarmuk had not received aid for so long.

Qatar on Tuesday launched a project to build 1,000 homes in the Gaza Strip to house Palestinians displaced by last summer's war between Hamas and Israel.

The Gulf state, which hosts the exiled leadership of Gaza's Islamist rulers, was the largest single donor at an October conference in Cairo to raise funds to help rebuild the blockaded territory.