The U.S. military plans to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran and intensifying fighting in Yemen, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Citing unspecified procurement documents, the newspaper said the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos in response to requests from the U.S. Central Command.

European and Arab nations on Friday circulated a new draft resolution on Syria at the U.N. Security Council calling for backing for an Arab League plan under which President Bashar al-Assad would have to stand down.

Morocco presented a draft resolution to the 15-nation body -- drawn up by Arab states with Britain, France and Germany -- that seeks to end months of U.N. deadlock over Syria.

The United Nations on Friday called on Israel to immediately halt the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank after reporting a dramatic rise in demolitions in the past year.

Israeli forces destroyed 622 Palestinian homes in the West Bank in 2011, "forcibly displacing" almost 1,100 people, over half of them children, according to a U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report.

At least 384 children have been killed during 10 months of violence in Syria and almost the same number detained, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.

"As of January 7, 384 children have been killed, most are boys," Rima Salah, acting UNICEF deputy executive director, told a press briefing in Geneva.

Scores of opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime stormed the Syrian embassy in Cairo on Friday before being dragged away by security forces, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

At least 200 protesters forced their way into the building in the Garden City neighborhood in Cairo, breaking doors and windows, before Egyptian security officials arrived and took them out. No arrests were made.

The head of the Arab League monitoring mission in Syria said Friday that violence there rose "in a significant way" in three days, particularly in the flashpoint cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib.

"The violence in Syria increased in a significant way between January 24 and 27, especially in Homs, Hama and Idlib," General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi said in a statement.

Syrian forces on Friday raided the rebellious city of Homs and shot dead at least 60 people across the country, activists said, as protesters took to the streets under the slogan "The Right to Self-defense," which refers to their support for the rebel Free Syrian Army.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces shot dead 60 people including five children, three women and three army deserters.

The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed on Friday to have captured five Iranian military officers in the restive city of Homs and urged Tehran to "immediately" withdraw any additional troops it may have in Syria.

In a statement, the FSA said the Iranians captured "were working under the orders of the intelligence services of the Syrian air force" and had no valid papers to reside or work in Syria.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon urged the U.N. Security Council on Friday to speak with one voice on Syria, and called on Damascus to listen to the aspirations of its people.

"I hope that the Security Council will be able to act," said Ban, referring to a meeting later Friday at the United Nations on the crisis in Syria, where President Bashar Assad's regime is cracking down on a popular uprising.

Protesters marched to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to join thousands there demanding democratic change, a year after the uprising that toppled veteran president Hosni Mubarak.

After noon prayers, organized marches left Cairo mosques and headed for the square, the symbolic heart of the Egyptian uprising, on a day dubbed "the Friday of Pride and Dignity" by the dozens of pro-democracy groups organizing the rallies.