Radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada on Tuesday insisted he was not guilty of terrorism as his trial resumed in Jordan, accusing a presiding judge of being "dishonest."

"I am not guilty, and you are a dishonest judge," Abu Qatada, who was deported by Britain in July after a nearly decade-long legal battle, told judge Ahmad Qatarneh.

Two Syrian refugee children and their father died of their injuries on Tuesday after a cooking gas cylinder exploded in their tent in a camp in Jordan, officials said.

The explosion happened in the Zaatari camp, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the northern city of Mafraq, which is home to more than 100,000 refugees, a security official said.

One of five people living in Lebanon are refugees who have fled the conflict in neighboring Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Monday.

The UNHCR says there are more than 842,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon but the actual figure could be even higher, Lebanese authorities believe.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has rejected U.S. proposals for Israel to keep troops in a future Palestinian state along its strategic border with Jordan, a Palestinian source said on Friday.

Following a meeting on Thursday evening with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in the West Bank city of Ramallah, "President Abbas has rejected the ideas presented by the secretary of state", the source said.

Radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada, deported by Britain in July after a near decade-long legal battle, pleaded not guilty as his trial in Jordan on terrorism charges opened on Tuesday.

"You know full well I am not guilty and that this accusation is false," Abu Qatada, in prison overalls, told the state security court in Amman.

Jordan was Friday elected to a two-year term on the U.N. Security Council, taking the seat that Saudi Arabia won and then rejected in a protest over Syria's civil war.

Jordan, which will take up the seat on January 1, won 178 votes from among the 193 members of the U.N. General Assembly and was the only candidate put forward for the vacant post.

A Jordanian TV reporter who was held for 18 months by Islamic militants in the Philippines said on Friday his ordeal would be added to a book he is writing on global 'hotspots'.

Al-Arabiya reporter Bakr Atyani, who walked free from the hands of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group on Wednesday, also said he hoped to return to the Philippines despite his harrowing experience.

Israel's deputy defense minister ruled out Thursday any security compromise in the Jordan Valley, saying the Jewish state would not give in to U.S. pressure to accept "a bad deal".

Danny Danon, a hardline member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party, said Israel would never accept a Palestinian presence at the border crossing with Jordan.

Radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada, deported by Britain in July after a near decade-long legal battle, is to go on trial in Jordan on December 10, judicial sources said Tuesday.

"The state security court has set next Tuesday, December 10, as the date for the first hearing in the trial of Abu Qatada," one source said.

International aid agency Oxfam on Tuesday launched a "12 Days of Giving" appeal to help destitute Syrian refugee families in Jordan and Lebanon survive the region's harsh winter months.

"Oxfam will be doing the best they can by delivering winter kits to help many of the poorest families," said British actress Michelle Dockery who last month visited refugees in Jordan who have fled their country's conflict.