Syrian rebel fighters kidnapped 13 Kurds in the northern province of Aleppo on Sunday, turning them over to jihadist fighters already holding 250 abducted Kurds, an NGO said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the 13 were snatched at a roadblock in the Sfeira region of Aleppo and passed them on to al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaida.

Egyptian air strikes in the Sinai Peninsula killed at least eight militants and destroyed a weapons depot, the military and local residents said on Sunday.

The overnight strikes against "a terrorist group" responsible for killing police and army troops in north Sinai left "25 people dead and injured", army spokesman Colonel Ahmed Aly said.

The head of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party Ennahda is to meet the powerful UGTT trade union chief on Monday on the crisis sparked by the killing of an opposition politician.

The UGTT said that its head, Houcine Abassi, would meet Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi and Mustapha Ben Jaafar, speaker of the National Constituent Assembly.

A number of U.S. diplomatic missions closed on August 4 over an al-Qaida security alert reopened Sunday, while others stayed shut for the Muslim holidays following the Ramadan holy month.

The embassy in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, and the U.S. consulate in Dubai reopened, as the holiday marking the end of the fasting month came to a close in the southern Gulf state.

Israel said Sunday it would issue tenders for 1,000 new settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and Palestinians called this proof Israel is "not serious" about peace talks.

"Tenders will be published" later in the day for 793 units to be built in annexed east Jerusalem and 394 elsewhere in the West Bank, the housing ministry said in a statement, three days ahead of a new round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

Supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi rallied on Sunday to demand his reinstatement, amid last ditch efforts for reconciliation ahead of a threatened crackdown on protests.

A large convoy of cars carrying pictures of the deposed president beeped their horns as they drove through a neighborhood in east Cairo.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was recovering on Sunday after a hernia operation overnight in a Jerusalem hospital, his office said in a statement.

Surgery, at the prestigious Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, was successful and lasted about an hour, it added.

The United States condemned the perpetrators of deadly attacks in Iraq Saturday as "enemies of Islam," in an unusually detailed statement following the latest violence in the war-ravaged country.

The State Department said the car bombs that tore through Baghdad cafes and markets, as well as other blasts and shootings elsewhere, were "cowardly" attacks "aimed at families celebrating the Eid al-Fitr" holiday that marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

A drone strike on Yemen, the ninth since the end of July, has killed two suspected al-Qaida members, a local official said on Saturday..

Friday's attack in the southern province of Lahij targeted a car, wounding two other people while a fourth one escaped unharmed, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Six illegal migrants drowned Saturday off a tourist beach in Sicily after their boat carrying nearly 100 people, mostly Syrians, went aground in the latest attempt by desperate immigrants to reach Europe.

"We were alerted just after 5:30 am (0330 GMT) that a boat had run aground across from a beach resort" near the island's second largest city Catania, said the spokesman for the port authority Roberto D'Arrigo.