Syrian fighter jets blasted the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan on Thursday, killing at least 44 people, rescuers said, as 144 people were killed across the country according to activists.

Rescue workers said the air force's bombs destroyed two residential buildings and a mosque, where many women and children were taking refuge, in the strategic northwestern town, which was captured by rebel fighters on October 9 in their push to create a buffer zone along the Turkish border.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay lamented Thursday Israel's decision to boycott the Human Rights Council after it announced in March it would investigate Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.

"All indications are that they (Israel) will not be participating" in a meeting of the council early next year set to review the human rights situation in a number of countries including Israel, the High Commissioner for Human Rights told reporters in Geneva.

Kuwaiti police on Thursday arrested two former opposition MPs for making statements at a public rally deemed critical of the oil-rich Gulf state ruler, an opposition leader said.

"Two former (Islamist) MPs, Falah al-Sawwagh and Bader al-Dahoum, have just been arrested by the state security police," Mussallam al-Barrak, himself a former deputy, told reporters.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi sought on Thursday to reassure the military after a state-owned newspaper reported corruption charges against the two army chiefs he sacked in August.

On Wednesday, the editor of Gomhuria newspaper was suspended after publishing a report saying ex-military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and chief of staff Sami Enan were barred from traveling because of a corruption probe.

Israel granted final approval on Thursday to a plan to build 800 homes near Gilo in annexed east Jerusalem, with construction tenders likely to be published within a few months, a Peace Now official said.

The move will mean the westward expansion of Gilo, a settlement neighborhood located on the southern flanks of east Jerusalem, which lies very close to the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Libya's top official headed for Bani Walid on Thursday to try to persuade its tribal and military leaders to allow a peaceful army takeover, a day after clashes in the former rebel bastion killed 11 people.

Ex-rebel combatants linked to the army, including many from the rival city of Misrata, attacked the oasis town on Wednesday in fighting that left at least 11 dead and dozens wounded, according to sources in both camps.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards on Thursday rejected reported allegations from Western intelligence sources that it plans to damage an oil tanker in the Gulf to create an environmental disaster.

Deputy commander General Hossein Salami said the force "does not need such scenarios to accomplish its mission and carries out its work based on realities," as quoted by Fars news agency.

Iraq on Thursday refused to allow more than 120 Turkish buses to cross into Saudi Arabia, apparently loaded with Mecca pilgrims, because the passengers did not have visas issued by Baghdad, officials said.

"The government has decided to turn back 128 Turkish buses because they entered (Iraq) without following the procedures in force," Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told Agence France Presse.

A shell fired accidentally at an army weapons depot in the Yemeni capital killed two people and wounded seven others on Thursday, a security official told Agence France Presse.

"Initial information indicates that a shell was (accidentally) fired at the weapons depot" from a nearby military facility where troops "were training," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Hundreds of Hamas fighters kicked off celebrations in Gaza on Thursday to mark one year since Israel began freeing 1,027 prisoners in exchange for the release of one soldier.

In the first event of a day of celebrations, hundreds of armed and masked fighters from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, marched through the city in a big show of force, an AFP correspondent said.