Syrian authorities have called for "million man prayers" at mosques on Friday to appeal for the re-establishment of security in the country, ravaged by 22 months of bloodshed, a minister said.

"Prayers will be held after Friday services in Syria's mosques with the appeal for a return to security and safety in the homeland," Minister of Religious Endowments Mohammed Abdel Settar said in a statement.

The U.N. and Arab League chiefs on Wednesday pledged "total support" to beleaguered Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as he struggles to launch political talks to try to end the country's civil war.

Brahimi has been criticized by President Bashar Assad's government and so far has failed to bring key players Russia and the United States in line behind a transition plan that could end the 22-month-old conflict.

Yair Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party took second place in Israel's election, ruled out on Wednesday participating in any bloc to prevent incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a new coalition government.

"I've heard talk of an (anti-Netanyahu) bloc," Lapid said. "I suggest removing that from the table. There will not be a bloc; that will not happen."

Palestinian leaders will work toward peace with any Israeli government that recognizes the Palestinian state, foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said Wednesday.

But Malki told the U.N. Security Council that actions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since U.N. members recognized the Palestinian state in November have been "the complete antithesis of the two-state solution."

A Bahraini appeals court on Wednesday upheld a death sentence and a life-term respectively passed on two protesters convicted of murdering a policeman during a Shiite-led uprising last year, lawyers said.

The court upheld the death sentence handed down in September 2011 to Ali al-Taweel and the term of life imprisonment given Ali Shamlo, both convicted of running over policeman Ahmed al-Mreyssi with the intention of killing him.

Jordan's opposition, which boycotted Wednesday's election, shed doubt on the 44-percent turnout announced by the government and alleged vote buying marred the polls.

"The turnout is very weak. The figures announced by the government are not accurate. The accurate turnout was around 16.7 at 3:00 pm (1200 GMT)," the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement.

Tunisia's draft constitution still lacks full provision for human rights despite making some progress, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday in a letter to the National Constituent Assembly.

The U.S.-based watchdog said that it wrote urging the interim parliament to "amend those articles of the second draft of the constitution that risk undermining human rights."

A suicide bomber made his way into a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad and blew himself up in the middle of a packed funeral on Wednesday, killing 42 people and leaving corpses scattered across the floor.

The attack, the deadliest in six months, is likely to heighten tensions as Iraq grapples with a political crisis and more than a month of protests in Sunni-majority areas that have hardened opposition to Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

A 21-year-old Palestinian woman died after being hit in the face by Israeli gunfire in the southern West Bank Wednesday, medics said, with witnesses saying she was shot by soldiers.

Lubna Hanash was killed in a shooting outside a college near al-Arrub refugee camp, some eight kilometers (five miles) north of Hebron, medics said.

Rebel groups in Syria appeared to have deliberately destroyed or allowed the looting of minority religious sites in the north in November and December 2012, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

"The destruction of religious sites is furthering sectarian fears and compounding the tragedies of the country, with tens of thousands killed," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at the New York-based HRW.