Egypt decided on Sunday to recall its ambassador to Syria, the Foreign Ministry announced, as Arab states pile pressure on Damascus over its crackdown on dissent that has left thousands dead.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr recalled the Egyptian ambassador to Damascus "and it was decided that the ambassador will remain in Cairo until further notice," ministry spokesman Amr Rushdi said in a statement.

Israeli police said they arrested three Palestinians in the grounds of the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem on Sunday after tourists visiting the site as well as police were stoned.

"Stones were thrown at tourists and police officers, police have made three arrests ... three suspects involved in throwing stones," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse. "The situation is calm at present," he said.

Gunmen assassinated a senior prosecutor and a judge in a restive province in northwest Syria on Sunday, the country's state news agency said, while activists reported that security forces shelled rebel-held areas in the besieged city of Homs.

SANA news agency said gunmen opened fire in the morning on a car carrying Idlib provincial state prosecutor Nidal Ghazal and judge Mohammed Ziadeh.

The Syrian army has been laying siege to the ancient city of Palmyra, a world heritage site, since early February and shooting at anything that moves from a historic citadel, residents say.

"Palmyra is surrounded by the army from all fronts: the Arab citadel, the olive and palm tree groves, the desert, the city," one resident told AFP by telephone, adding that the operation began on February 4.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a Baghdad police academy Sunday, killing 15 people and wounding more than 20 others in the deadliest attack for weeks in the Iraqi capital, security officials said.

At least seven other people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq.

U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan met with Yemen's vice president on Saturday and expressed Washington's commitment to provide support to the troubled country, official reports said.

"The U.S. will stand side by side with Yemen as it works to emerge from these difficult circumstances," the official SABA news agency quoted Brennan as saying in a meeting with Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in Sanaa.

Three people were wounded early Sunday morning in an Israeli air strike on Gaza, medical sources said, hours after another strike injured one man.

According to the sources, the latest air strike, which targeted a home in the al-Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City, left the three in moderate condition.

President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that the next Palestinian government will respect agreements signed by the PLO, a reference to the peace accords with Israel.

"The next government will remain committed to the obligations and agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization," Abbas said, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Iraq is taking measures to secure its border with Syria against weapons smuggling and the unauthorized movement of people, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said in a statement on Saturday.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has been carrying out a bloody crackdown on an uprising in which human rights groups say more than 6,000 people have been killed since March 2011.

Algeria proposed Saturday to boost cooperation with North African neighbors against terror and organized crime as the five-nation Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) held its first high-level conference since 1996.

Algeria sought "true and effective Maghreb cooperation in the fields of terrorism, organized crime, illegal arms and drug trafficking and clandestine immigration," Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told counterparts in Rabat.