The European Union has postponed plans to introduce separate labeling for products from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday.

Citing European diplomats and Israeli officials it did not identify, the paper reported that the plan, which had been due to be approved by EU foreign ministers later this week, will now not be put to ministers until the end of June.

Syrian troops backed by Hizbullah fighters on Sunday entered Qusayr, a strategic rebel stronghold linking Damascus to the coast, a day after President Bashar Assad insisted he would not quit.

The advance came as Assad's opponents warned his regime's "barbaric and destructive" assault on Qusayr could torpedo U.S.-Russian attempts to organize a conference on ending two years of bloodshed in the country.

Iran hanged two convicted spies on Sunday, one found guilty of working for Israel, the other for the United States, the Tehran prosecutor's office announced.

Mohammad Heydari was convicted of "receiving payment to provide intelligence on various security issues and national secrets in repeated meetings with the Mossad," Israel's intelligence agency, a statement said.

A car bomb exploded in a northern district of the Syrian capital on Saturday killing at least three people and wounding five others, state television reported.

The state broadcaster said the bomb was placed in a car in the Rokn Eddin neighborhood and that a disposal team was sent in to defuse another device.

Morocco denied on Saturday accusations by Amnesty International that security forces tortured six men who were arrested after a demonstration calling for the independence of Western Sahara.

The Sahrawis were arrested on May 9 in connection with a protest that took place five days earlier in Laayoune, the main city in disputed Western Sahara, which turned violent.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said Saturday he welcomed a U.S.-Russian peace initiative to end Syria's civil war but had no plans to resign, in an interview with an Argentine newspaper.

"To resign would be to flee," he told the Clarin when asked if he would consider stepping aside as called for by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Germany's foreign minister said on Saturday his country was prepared to help create conditions for a resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Guido Westerwelle, on a two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, was quoted by a foreign ministry statement as saying "Germany is ready to help create a climate of confidence" that would permit talks to resume.

An apparent U.S. drone attack has killed four suspected al-Qaida militants in southern Yemen and destroyed an explosives-packed truck, tribal sources said on Saturday.

They occurred on Friday night in Al-Mahfad region in Abyan province, the sources said.

Dozens of Palestinians held a protest in the Old City of annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday, hurling rocks at Israeli police and setting ablaze garbage bins, a police spokeswoman said.

"Dozens of Palestinians threw rocks at police forces near Nablus Gate. Two of them were arrested," said Luba Samri.

Gunmen abducted the elderly father of Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad on Saturday, apparently in reprisal for the arrest of one of their relatives, according to a government source and a watchdog.

"Today armed men abducted Mr Muqdad's father from his home in the village of Ghossom," in the southern province of Daraa, the government source said on condition of anonymity