New evidence implicating militias in executions after ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed in Sirte last October 20 raises fresh questions over his death, a watchdog said on Wednesday.

"The evidence suggests that opposition militias summarily executed at least 66 captured members of Gadhafi's convoy in Sirte," his home town, said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Israeli airplanes carried out a sortie in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning, the army said, hours after a rocket from the enclave exploded in southern Israel.

Military "aircraft targeted a terror activity site in the northern Gaza Strip. A direct hit was confirmed," a statement read.

Foreign militants fighting in Syria could contribute to an increased "radicalization" of the conflict, members of a U.N. commission investigating rights abuses in the war-torn country said Tuesday.

"The presence of foreign militants, radical Islamists or jihadists, worries us very much," commission head Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told reporters, estimating there were hundreds of foreign combatants on the ground in Syria.

British police on Tuesday charged a man with kidnapping two Western journalists in Syria, one week after he was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport, Scotland Yard said.

Shajul Islam, 26, is alleged to have "unlawfully and injuriously imprisoned" photographers John Cantlie from Britain, and Jeroen Oerlemans from the Netherlands, between July 17 and 26, it said in a statement.

Pope Benedict XVI will send a delegation to the Syrian capital to "express his brotherly solidarity with the entire population", the Vatican said Tuesday.

"We cannot be mere spectators to the tragedy taking place in Syria," the Holy See's number two official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said during a global synod of Catholic bishops at the Vatican.

The Syrian government is interested in exploring a ceasefire in the 19-month conflict as proposed by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdisi said on Tuesday, as the opposition Syrian National Council said it “would welcome any halt to the killings.”

Maqdisi stressed that for a halt to the violence, the rebels and their backers would need to be involved too.

Syria will hold by-elections on December 1 to fill five seats in parliament, two of which became vacant when sitting MPs defected to the opposition, state news agency SANA said.

"President Bashar Assad has passed a decree calling for the organization of parliamentary elections for December 1 to fill five empty seats," SANA said.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has told the United States that he intends to resume peace talks with Israel if his bid to win U.N. non-member recognition for Palestine succeeds.

"President Mahmud Abbas sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday, in which he affirms the commitment of the Palestinian side to the two-state option," official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Abbas political adviser Nimr Hammad as saying.

Jordan's electoral authority on Tuesday set January 23 as the date for a general election, state media said, after King Abdullah II dissolved parliament in a bid to pave the way for sweeping reforms.

"In line with a royal decree to hold the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Independent Election Commission decided today to set the vote for Wednesday, January 23," the commission said in a statement carried by Petra news agency.

Palestinians briefly blocked a West Bank highway on Tuesday in protest at settler attacks and to demand its opening to local traffic, an AFP correspondent and the army said.

The correspondent said around 100 Palestinian demonstrators, along with Israeli and foreign activists, gathered on route 443 near Beit Ur village, five kilometres (three miles) west of Ramallah, blocking traffic on a key road linking Jerusalem with the coastal plain.