The Palestinian leadership said on Monday it will seek a U.N. Security Council meeting on Israeli plans to build new settlers homes on occupied territory.

The leadership is about to take "important and necessary measures against Israel's settlement building, including recourse to the U.N. Security Council, to prevent implementation of these decisions," president Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

Austria's foreign ministry said Monday it had demanded an explanation from Syria over the arrest of an Austrian citizen who according to a humanitarian group had been distributing aid in the conflict-torn country.

Jamal Orabi, a 47-year-old Syrian with Austrian nationality, was arrested by Syrian military intelligence while at the home of relatives on Sunday in Aleppo, his family said Monday.

Israel on Monday gave the green light for developers to go ahead with controversial plans to build 1,500 settler homes in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the interior ministry told AFP.

Spokeswoman Efrat Orbach said the ministry's planning committee had told the applicants to trim their request to build 1,600 new housing units at Ramat Shlomo to 1,500 and resubmit it "for final approval".

An Italian engineer has been kidnapped in Syria along with two other workers from the steel works in the port city of Latakia, the foreign ministry in Rome said Monday.

"In all such cases, the safety of our countryman is of the utmost priority and it is indispensable to be as discreet as possible," Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in a statement, without revealing any further details about the kidnap victims.

Rebel fighters on Monday launched an all-out assault on army positions across Hama in some of the worst violence in the central province for months, a watchdog reported.

"Several rebel units began an all-out offensive against positions of the regular army in Hama province," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

A wave of attacks targeting both Iraqi security forces and civilians killed 48 people on Monday, in a second day of deadly violence ahead of the first anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Monday was the deadliest day in Iraq since November 29, when 50 people were killed. The latest violence comes after attacks killed 19 people and wounded 77 on Sunday.

Syria on Monday hit back at the United Nations over the fate of Palestinian refugees after U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon voiced "grave concern" following a deadly air strike on Yarmuk camp in southern Damascus.

"The United Nations and international community are responsible for the frustrations of the Palestinians because they have not implemented U.N. resolutions related to their legitimate rights," Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said.

Pope Benedict XVI received Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday and called on all parties involved in the Middle East crisis to find the courage to work together for peace and reconciliation.

In a statement following the meeting, the Vatican said it hoped the United Nations' recent recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state would "encourage the commitment of the international community to finding a fair and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

The Islamist Hamas movement ruling Gaza has seen a sharp rise in popularity since its eight-day war with Israel and would win as many seats as Fatah if a Palestinian vote were held now, a poll found Monday.

The survey, carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), comes after last month's conflict, a top-level visit to Gaza by Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and after the Palestinians successfully won upgraded U.N. membership.

A key tactical victory for rebels in northern Syria proved bittersweet when a well-respected commander was killed, with fighters recalling a father figure with a sharp military mind.

Colonel Yusef al-Jader -- known among rebel fighters simply as Abu Furat -- died as his forces fought to take an infantry academy in the town of Muslimiyeh just north of the embattled city of Aleppo on Saturday.