Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Monday called for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians during a visit to the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.

Several dozen people protested against his visit, and Palestinians said Israeli soldiers used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators.

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian late on Saturday near Nablus in the north of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian security officials said.

They said Ahmad al-Najjar, 19, was killed and another man was wounded by live fire during a clash with Israeli forces.

Israel's state-run electricity company is to reduce energy supplies to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank because of a debt of more than $450 million, an official said Thursday.

The move comes at a time of diplomatic tensions, weeks after Israel froze the Palestinian Authority's (PA) tax revenues in retaliation for joining the International Criminal Court (ICC).

A rights group on Tuesday urged Palestinian authorities to abolish the death penalty, after two new sentences were handed down this month in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights called for "an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a form of punishment because it violates international human rights standards."

Israel's navy opened fire at fishing boats off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, wounding two Palestinian fishermen, the Gaza health ministry said.

The men, said to be in a moderate condition in hospital, were aboard two boats sailing off the strip's northern coast when an Israeli patrol boat fired at them early in the morning, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday urged his Palestinian counterpart to renew peace talks instead of pursuing efforts at the International Criminal Court or United Nations.

"There is no other way than direct negotiations. Unilateral steps will not solve the conflict, but just give more power to the extremists," Rivlin said during a visit by a delegation of U.S. senators headed by Republican John McCain.

Israel condemned as "scandalous" the International Criminal Court's decision Friday to launch a preliminary probe into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

The Palestinians, in contrast, said nothing "can now stop this action" from being widened into a full-scale investigation as they have requested.

Muslims marched Friday in Middle Eastern cities against a new cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo, as Gulf states warned the drawing could fuel hatred.

The largest rally was in Jordan, where around 2,500 protesters took to the streets of the capital Amman amid tightened security, while demonstrations also took place in east Jerusalem and Khartoum. 

Hamza Aldaradreh scored the first hat-trick of the Asian Cup on Friday as Jordan hammered Palestine 5-1 to keep themselves alive in the competition.

Aldaradreh finished with four goals, helping Jordan end a miserable run of 11 games without a win, but their hopes of advancing still hang in the balance with defending champions Japan to come in their final Group D game on Tuesday.

Envoys from the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia will meet later this month to discuss the next steps to address the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, officials said Thursday.

The gathering of the Middle East diplomatic quartet will take place January 26 in Brussels to discuss ways of reviving the peace process after the Palestinians failed to win U.N. Security Council approval of a resolution on ending the Israeli occupation.