A second "Prisoner X" who is being held in top-secret conditions in an Israeli jail has been detained in total isolation for many years, the Israeli media reported on Thursday.

The prisoner, whose identity has not been revealed even to the guards, is locked in a high security cell with no windows in Ayalon prison near Tel Aviv, reports said, adding that he is only allowed a brief walk alone in a courtyard surrounded by a wall.

Tunisian authorities early on Thursday released from jail two former figures of the toppled regime who were arrested following the 2011 uprising for abuse of power, the justice ministry said.

Mohammed Ghariani, ex-secretary general of the Rally for Constitutional Democracy party of now ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and former interior minister Abdallah Kallel were ordered freed by Tunis Appeals Court, the ministry said.

Militants killed 25 Iraqi security forces in a wave of attacks on Thursday, and 15 other people died in other attacks including 10 mourners in twin bombings, officials said.

The latest attacks come as Iraq witnesses a surge in violence that has killed more than 2,500 people already this year, including over 240 so far this month.

An Israeli police spokesman told Agence France Presse that contrary to an earlier announcement, no rocket was fired by Palestinian militants in the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip at Israel on Thursday.

"There was no rocket in the end -- it was a false alarm," Micky Rosenfeld said.

A Coptic Christian man was found decapitated on Thursday in Egypt's Sinai peninsula five days after he was kidnapped by gunmen, security officials and witnesses told Agence France Presse.

The man was found with his hands and feet bound and his head severed in the Sheikh Zuwayed area of north Sinai, they said.

In the early days of the Syrian uprising, when opponents of the regime were desperate for assistance from any quarter, jihadist fighters were welcomed but a spate of abuses is fueling a backlash.

Things have changed.

A Greek charter plane made an emergency landing at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Thursday after the pilot had sent out a distress signal, an airport official told Agence France Presse.

"The airport was placed on a state of alert after receiving a distress message about a technical problem but the aircraft landed without incident," the official said.

Ruling party leaders removed in a reshuffle this week had made mistakes while in office, Syria's President Bashar Assad told the Baath party's mouthpiece in an interview published Thursday.

The interview was published two days after the Baath party announced the names of 16 new leaders, which included none of the party's former chiefs with the exception of Assad, who will remain secretary general.

Egypt's Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi said on Thursday he does not rule out posts for the Muslim Brotherhood in a new cabinet, if the candidates were suitably qualified.

Beblawi, who was appointed on Tuesday, said he was still considering who would comprise the interim government after Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's ouster in a popular military coup last week.

The United Nations has accepted the Syrian government's invitation for a visit by two senior U.N. officials for talks on the purported use of chemical weapons in the country's bloody civil war, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday.

The offer of talks was made to Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, named by the United Nations to investigate the claims, and Angela Kane, U.N. High Representative for Disarmament.