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Asked about a recent statement made by a member of the opposition, by which Syria will establish relations with Israel after Assad’s fall, Ghalioun said: “Who is the fool who said such a thing?”

None of the candidates want to tear up the document signed in 1979 but they repeatedly warn in rallies and debates it should be reviewed. Many of them grumble at provisions in the US-brokered deal they say are biased in Israel’s favour.

Palestinian Authority premier Salam Fayyad lost his dual role as finance minister in a government reshuffle on Wednesday, as President Mahmoud Abbas swore in 9 new ministers.

Israeli forces faced off with Palestinian stone-throwers in the West Bank on Tuesday during the annual Nakba Day protests over the “catastrophe” that befell the Palestinians in 1948.

At Beitunia checkpoint near Ramallah, youths hurled stones at troops, who fired tear gas, metal pellets and rubber bullets in a bid to break up the demonstration, an AFP correspondent said.

Many protesters could be seen with blood on their faces as they waved black flags and roared angry slogans.

“They (Iran) have so many high-ranking officials in Lebanon. I don’t think this is a decision of Nasrallah — he will get orders. That’s why he was created,” said the official.

“If you ask Nasrallah today, he would say ‘no’ (to a new war with Israel) but I don’t think that’s his call,” he said. “Nasrallah understood the power of Israel and he is still licking his wounds.”

Both men attempted to present the other as weak on Israel, with Mr Aboul Fotouh openly challenging his rival to declare whether or not he regarded the Jewish state as an “enemy” – a demand that elicited a cautious response.

Mr Aboul Fotouh was more forthright, baldly declaring: “Israel is an enemy.”

The leader of Lebanon’s Hizbollah said his militant group was capable of striking any target in neighbouring Israel, saying “the days when we fled and they did not are over”. “Today we are not only able to hit Tel Aviv as a city but, God willing, we are able to hit specific targets in Tel Aviv and anywhere in occupied Palestine,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address.

“For every building destroyed in Dahiya, a building will be destroyed in Tel Aviv,” he said, referring to Hizbollah’s stronghold in a suburb of southern Beirut.

JERUSALEM: Israel’s prison service has offered to ease restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in a bid to end a mass hunger strike that has left several detainees close to death, sources told AFP on Thursday.

Just under 1,600 Palestinian prisoners are currently refusing food in a wide-ranging protest against solitary confinement, detention without charge and restrictions on family visits, education and various privileges.

While Israelis focused on the impact of the move on contentious domestic issues, including the end of military exemptions for ultrareligious Jews, Arab media saw one motive: Strengthening Israel’s hand toward Iran.

Radi Asida told Ma’an that authorities had overlooked the corruption “for some time,” leading to the current state of lawlessness.

On Sunday, Asida told Ma’an that a number of PA security officers had been arrested on various charges as part of a crackdown on the city in the wake of the shooting attack.