Egypt's authorities referred 438 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to military courts Saturday over violence that followed the bloody dispersal of Cairo sit-ins last year, judiciary sources said.

Since ex-army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed Morsi in July 2013, his followers have been the target of a relentless crackdown by the authorities, who are also accused of exploiting the judiciary in their fight against the Islamist opposition.

The U.N. Security Council on Saturday condemned the night-time gun attack on the Israeli embassy in Athens and stressed the need to catch the perpetrators.

In a unanimous statement, the 15-member council "condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack against the Embassy of Israel in Athens, Greece, on 12 December, involving dozens of shots fired at the Embassy building, and underlined the need to bring its perpetrators to justice."

Kurdish forces killed at least 16 Islamic State group fighters in an attack on Saturday in northeast Syria near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The assault targeted IS positions south of the town of Ras al-Ain in Hasakeh province, the Britain-based monitoring group added.

The U.N. Security Council called for a speedy and transparent investigation after a senior Palestinian official died during a confrontation with Israeli soldiers.

The Palestinian leadership has blamed Israel for "killing" 55-year-old Ziad Abu Ein on Wednesday, which came during an anti-settlements protest march by roughly 300 Palestinians who intended to plant olive trees as a symbolic act.

Yemeni troops on Saturday shot dead five Al-Qaida suspects disguised as women who fired at a soldier during a checkpoint inspection of their Saudi-bound bus, officials said.

Another suspect was wounded along with the driver in the shooting in Harad, a town 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the Saudi border, the officials said, adding two of those killed were Saudis.

Islamist militias in the eastern Libyan town of Derna say they have formed a new coalition ahead of an expected assault by pro-government forces.

"Everybody saw what happened in Benghazi: disaster; institutions destroyed; houses demolished; mosques and universities burned by the criminal hands of Haftar's supporters," said the newly formed Mujahedeen Shura Council.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a growing threat from center-left rivals who have joined forces to try to oust the rightwing leader in snap elections, experts say.

Parliament on Monday set polling day for March 17, just over two years after Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition took office, and following a spat in which he fired two ministers and called the early vote.

An explosion occurred outside the French cultural center in Gaza City on Friday night, but caused no casualties, an Agence France-Presse photographer said.

The mayor of a town in Algeria was shot dead and had his throat slit by unidentified "terrorists" on Friday, police were quoted by the APS news agency as saying.

The U.N.'s human rights chief on Friday said the circumstances of the death of a senior Palestinian official while manhandled by Israeli soldiers this week were "disturbing" and called for a timely and impartial investigation.