The United Nations on Thursday called on Israel to unlock millions of dollars in taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority that were withheld after it decided to join the International Criminal Court.

A senior U.N. official told the U.N. Security Council that the freeze of about $127 million imposed on January 3 was in violation of the Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

The United Nations on Thursday called on Israel to unlock millions of dollars in taxes owed to the Palestinian Authority that were withheld after it decided to join the International Criminal Court.

A senior U.N. official told the U.N. Security Council that the freeze of about $127 million imposed on January 3 was in violation of the Oslo peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

In the spirit of Charlie Hebdo, Palestinian cartoonist Ramzy Taweel is making his feelings about the French satirical weekly crystal clear -- his latest illustration equates the publication to toilet paper.

Palestinian political cartoonists, including Taweel, rushed to eulogies the staff of Charlie Hebdo killed by Islamic extremists in an attack on their offices in Paris last week, publishing images defending free speech, condemning violence and expressing solidarity with France.

Hamas MPs in Gaza held an exclusive meeting on Wednesday apparently defying the Palestinian Authority and criticized president Mahmoud Abbas, in a further sign of a failing unity pact.

They were meeting for the first time since the April unity deal, which ostensibly put an end to years of infighting between Gaza rulers Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo called for more international help for Gaza as he met Tuesday with families who lost their homes in last summer's war with Israel.

"The international community must act rapidly to rebuild Gaza," he told reporters at a U.N.-run school in Gaza City, one of a number of places hosting some 17,000 Gazans who were displaced during the war. 

Israeli police and the Shin Bet domestic security agency on Monday closed two Muslim charities suspected of channeling funds to finance "terror", a police statement said.

It identified the institutions as Muslim Women for al-Aqsa, in annexed east Jerusalem, and Al-Fajr in the Arab city of Nazareth in northern Israel.

Hundreds rallied in Jerusalem and Ramallah on Sunday in separate shows of solidarity with France over the attacks in Paris that left 17 people dead.

More than 500 people gathered in Jerusalem in front of a screen reading in French "Jerusalem is Charlie", an Agence France-Presse correspondent said.

An Israeli court sentenced two sisters of former Hamas Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya to suspended prison terms Thursday for illegally entering the coastal strip.

Court documents said Sabah Haniya, 48, and Leila Abu Rkaik, 65, both Israeli citizens, were sentenced to eight months, suspended for three years, and fined 20,000 shekels ($5,000, 4,276 euros) for crossing into Gaza from Egypt in 2013 without obtaining a permit from Israel.

A rights group on Thursday urged Israel to lift restrictions which it said deprive Palestinians of sufficient medical care, slamming high infant mortality rates and poor access to treatment.

Physicians for Human Rights released its 47-page report, entitled Divide and Conquer, just days after Israel froze tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority in a move condemned by the United States and European Union.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has accepted the request by Palestine to join the International Criminal Court, a move that would open the way for war crimes complaints against Israel.

The decision grants the Hague-based ICC jurisdiction to open cases starting April 1 on serious crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, despite fierce opposition from Israel and the United States.