Israel on Sunday freed 550 Palestinian prisoners, completing the second phase of the deal which saw Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit freed in October, Palestinians said.

Officials in the West Bank city of Ramallah said that the main contingent of freed prisoners entered the city aboard a fleet of buses at around 10:00 pm (2000 GMT), where thousands of well-wishers awaited them at the Palestinian presidential headquarters.

Egypt's largest Islamist parties claimed the lead in the second round of a multi-stage legislative election, confirming them as them as front-runners in the first post-revolution parliament.

The second round of elections which took place in nine provinces over two days saw a 67 percent turnout, election commission chief Abdul Moez Ibrahim told reporters.

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said he will submit the lineup of his new cabinet on Monday, the first freely elected government since the north African country's popular uprising.

"The final makeup of the government will be presented on Monday afternoon to President Moncef Marzouki before being submitted for approval by the constituent assembly on Wednesday or Thursday," Jebali said, quoted by the official TAP news agency.

Bahraini security forces on Sunday dispersed several hundred Shiite demonstrators who gathered outside the capital Manama for the fourth day in a row, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Riot police stormed a roundabout on the Budaiya highway where men and women had gathered and chanted slogans against the government of the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Kuwait will hold parliamentary elections on February 2, an official statement said on Sunday, the fourth poll in under six years for the OPEC Gulf state as it seeks political stability.

Education and Justice Minister Ahmed al-Mulaifi said after a cabinet meeting that the government approved a decree calling on an estimated 400,000 Kuwaiti voters to elect a new parliament on February 2, according to the statement.

Baghdad's foreign minister will lead an Iraqi initiative to end months of unrest in Syria by holding talks with the Damascus regime, opposition groups and the Arab League, an Iraqi official said Sunday.

Iraq is trying to mediate an end to nine months of bloody unrest in Syria where the U.N. estimates that more than 5,000 people have been killed in a regime crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Fighting between al-Qaida-linked militants and government forces in southern Yemen killed two soldiers and six Islamists on Sunday, military and local officials said.

Yemen's army has for months been battling fighters from the Islamist group Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), trying to retake control of Zinjibar, capital of the restive Abyan province.

The Arab League is "optimistic" that by Monday Syria will sign a proposal to send an observer mission to the unrest-hit country, the Omani minister responsible for foreign affairs said Sunday, as Qatar’s premier said "we have received information stating that he (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) will sign the protocol."

"We'll see if it's true," Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, who chairs an Arab League taskforce on Syria, added.

Israel's housing and construction ministry said on Sunday it was to publish tenders for the construction of more than 1,000 housing units in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

According to the ministry's website, the tenders are for 500 new units in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, and more than 500 in two West Bank settlements -- 348 in Beitar Ilit near Bethlehem, and 180 in Givat Ze'ev northwest of Jerusalem.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on lawmakers on Sunday to withdraw confidence from one of his deputies, as the country's political crisis deepened with U.S. forces completing their withdrawal.

Maliki's push for the ouster of Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni Arab who described him on television as "worse than Saddam Hussein", came a day after the deputy prime minister's Iraqiya bloc said it was boycotting parliament in protest at the premier's alleged centralization of power.