Authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday executed two Palestinians for allegedly collaborating with Israel, the territory's interior ministry said.

"Two collaborators with the Israeli occupation, condemned to death for having given information leading to the martyrdom of two citizens, have been executed," a spokesman told Agence France Presse.

Egypt's former army chief and leading presidential candidate Abdel Fattah al-Sisi suggested on Tuesday he would not receive an Israeli prime minister if the Jewish state does not make concessions to Palestinians in peace talks.

The retired field marshal, who toppled elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July, is expected to sweep the May 26-27 election. His only rival is leftist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi.

Some 10,000 Israeli Arabs rallied in northern Israel on Tuesday to demand the right of return for refugees expelled after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

The demonstration took place in the Israeli village of Lavi, which was built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Lubya.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi's visit to Jerusalem continues to be controversial, with some considering it a “historical mistake that opens the door for normalization with Israel,” and Church authorities reiterating that it has a strictly religious character.

Bishop Samir Mazloum assured OTV on Saturday evening that the patriarch “is not going to hold a peace treaty with Israel.”

Suspected Jewish extremists have uprooted dozens of olive trees in a Palestinian-owned field in the West Bank, Israeli police said Saturday.

"Twenty-five olive trees were uprooted and sawn up in a field belonging to Palestinians near Bat Ayin" in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, police spokeswoman Louba Samri told Agence France Presse.

Palestine on Friday became a formal party to five global treaties banning torture and racial discrimination, and protecting the rights of women, children and the disabled, the U.N. said.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, told reporters that the move followed the Palestinians' April 2 declaration to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that they were adopting the treaties.

Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will travel to Jerusalem next month to greet Pope Francis, becoming the first head of the Maronite church to visit the holy land since Israel's creation in 1948, he said Friday.

"The pope is going to the Holy Land and Jerusalem. He is going to the diocese of the patriarch, so it's normal that the patriarch should welcome him," Rahi said by telephone from France.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel will seek to anchor its status as a “Jewish state” in law.

"One of my main missions as prime minister of Israel is to bolster the status of the State of Israel as the national state of our people," Netanyahu said in a speech in Tel Aviv.

More than 1,000 people gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday for the funerals of two Hamas militants Israel killed in 1998, whose remains had just been returned.

Israel transferred the remains of Imad Awadallah, 48, and his 46-year-old brother Adel, to Palestinian officials at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank overnight, Palestinian activists said.

Palestinian leaders risk forfeiting millions of dollars in U.S. aid if they press ahead with plans to form a unity government including militant Hamas members, U.S. lawmakers and officials warned Tuesday.

"Let me be utterly clear about our policy towards Hamas," Assistant Secretary for the Near East Anne Patterson told a House hearing.