Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday called for demonstrations demanding the retrial of those responsible for protester deaths during last year's popular uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

A court on Wednesday acquitted 24 stalwarts of the ousted president who had been accused of incitement to murder over a notorious camel-borne assault on protesters on February 2, 2011, to the disbelief of human rights activists.

Turkish state-run television TRT reported Thursday that a Syrian passenger plane intercepted by Turkey's air force was carrying military communications equipment, as Damascus branded the incident piracy amid growing tensions between the two countries.

Yeni Safak, a newspaper close to the Turkish government, reported there were 10 containers aboard the plane, some containing radio receivers, antennas and "equipment that are thought to be missile parts."

Syria has stopped purchasing electricity from neighboring Turkey, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Thursday, with an official stating the move was due to damage to Syrian infrastructure.

"Syria halted their power purchases from Turkey one week ago," Yildiz said, adding however that Turkey was ready to resume supplies if a request was received.

Dozens of people have died in battles between Syrian troops and rebels for strategic northern towns, a watchdog said Thursday, adding that war planes were bombing rebel belts in the central city of Homs.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 69 people -- 15 civilians, 21 soldiers and 33 rebels -- were killed in clashes Wednesday in the northern province of Idlib province, including for control of Maaret al-Numan and other towns along the highway linking Damascus to the commercial capital Aleppo.

The U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi was a sitting target with weak security as requests for extra staffing were denied despite a rising Al-Qaida threat, U.S. lawmakers were told Wednesday.

In a testy and heated hearing, Republican lawmakers grilled three top State Department officials and the former leader of a security team into what went wrong in a September 11 attack on the mission, in which four Americans died.

The Israeli Air Force early Thursday morning launched a strike against what a spokeswoman called "a terror activity site" in the northern Gaza strip, which she said was in response to earlier rocket attacks on Israel.

Palestinian officials in Gaza said the target was a training camp of Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and said there were no casualties.

The U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has arrived in Saudi Arabia at the start of his second regional tour, the United Nations said Wednesday.

Brahimi had first gone to the Middle East in mid-September, visiting Damascus, where he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad -- but earned no promises of concessions from him.

A Syrian passenger plane was forced to land in Ankara on Wednesday evening on suspicions that it was carrying weapons, Anatolia news agency reported citing officials.

"We received information that the plane's cargo did not comply with rules of civil aviation," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the agency.

Forty-eight Iranians held hostage by rebels in Syria and threatened with execution were in "good health," Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday.

"Thanks to God, all of them are in good health," Salehi said, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam without a doubt would get a death sentence if tried in Libya, his lawyer told International Criminal Court in the Hague on Wednesday.

"Although the Libyan government has danced around the issue, let's be very clear: if convicted (in Libya) Mr. Gadhafi will be hanged," Melinda Taylor, a court-appointed lawyer, told judges amid a dispute between the ICC and Tripoli on where Seif should face justice.