An attack by Syrian rebels on an electricity pylon on Friday caused a power outage in several areas of Damascus, state television said.

"A group of terrorists destroyed a transmission tower, leading to a power cut," said the broadcaster, using the regime's standard terminology for rebels fighting to unseat President Bashar Assad.

November's eight-day confrontation between Israel and Gaza militants claimed the lives of 177 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and six Israelis, medical sources on both sides said.

A previous toll at the end of November stood at 174 Palestinian fatalities, and three more people have died of their wounds during December, according to emergency services in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday issued a rare and strong joint condemnation of Israeli plans to massively expand settlements.

A statement released during an EU-Russia summit said the two sides were "deeply dismayed by and strongly oppose Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank and in particular plans to develop the El area."

FBI agents on Friday questioned a Tunisian man suspected of involvement in a deadly September attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, but in the absence of defense lawyers, his solicitor said.

"The judge prevented any lawyers from attending the questioning" of Ali Hamzi, Abdelbasset Ben Mbarek told AFP, adding that his client was interrogated as a suspect rather than as a witness.

New clashes between pro- and anti-Damascus fighters erupted in a Palestinian camp in south Damascus on Friday, hours after the return of thousands of people who fled earlier violence, a monitoring group said.

"The fresh battles pitted fighters from the pro-regime popular committees against Syrian and Palestinian rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Gunmen kidnapped three tourists in Yemen's capital on Friday and drove off with them to an unknown location, a security official told AFP, adding that their nationalities were not yet known.

"Four masked gunmen in a vehicle attacked a shop in central Sanaa and abducted three foreign tourists -- a woman and two men," said the official, adding that the tourists were taken away at gunpoint.

A psychiatric hospital on the front line in Syria's war-ravaged second city of Aleppo, home to some 60 patients, has suffered from chronic shortages since fighting first broke out in July.

"They've had no medication for months, and it gets worse each day. There's no light, no heating, not even running water -- and the patients have hardly anything to eat," said nurse Abu Abdo, who helps to run Dar al-Ajaza hospital.

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia does not want "chaos" in Syria and that it looked forward to seeing a democratic regime in the war-torn nation.

"We will try to pursue the public order in Syria and look forward to a democratic regime in Syria because this country is close to our borders," he said at a news conference closing an EU-Russia summit, according to an English translation of his words.

Residents of Aleppo have suffered through months of brutal urban warfare and now face a humanitarian crisis with a lack of food and fuel as the Syrian winter sets in.

From throngs outside bakeries hoping for increasingly expensive bread to boys tying ropes around trees to pull them down and chop them up for firewood, the city that was once Syria's commercial hub is now barely surviving amid appeals for more international support.

Clashes between rival demonstrators erupted on Friday in Egypt's second city Alexandria, on the eve of the final round of a referendum on a divisive new constitution pushed by Islamists.

Riot police, with orders to act "decisively," formed a barrier between several thousand Islamists and hundreds more opposition protesters and used tear gas to quell the street battles.