Israel is "prepared to escalate" its response to a flare-up of violence along its border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday.

"The world must realize that Israel won't sit by idly in the face of attempts to attack us. We are prepared to escalate our actions," he said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.

A Jordanian court on Sunday sentenced former spy chief Mohammed Dahabi to 13 years in jail with hard labor and ordered him to pay a 21-million-dinar ($29-million) fine after finding him guilty of corruption.

Dahabi, a general who ran the intelligence department from 2005 to 2008, was detained in February and charged with money laundering, abuse of power and embezzlement.

Syrian warplanes pounded an eastern town on the border with Iraq on Sunday as firefights raged around an army barracks in the northeastern town of Ras al-Ain near Turkey, a watchdog said.

Troops also launched a pre-dawn bombardment of rebel lines near Damascus, after 121 people were reported killed nationwide on Saturday.

Syrian opposition factions which agreed on Sunday in Qatar to form a new coalition to fight President Bashar Assad have elected cleric Ahmed al-Khatib to head the bloc, dissidents said.

Khatib, a moderate originally from Damascus who quit Syria three months ago, will lead the National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition, formed after the Syrian National Council agreed to the new group.

Kuwait on Saturday marked the golden jubilee of its constitution with a spectacular $15-million fireworks display which earned the wealthy Gulf state a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

"I am happy to verify that with 77,282 fireworks, a new Guinness world record has been set tonight" in Kuwait City, a representative of Guinness World Records announced on Kuwait television at the end of the display.

At least five people were killed on Saturday and dozens injured when two trains collided south of the Egyptian capital, a security source said.

One of the trains was heading for Cairo from Fayyoum and the other was traveling in the opposite direction. They collided between the villages of Sila and Nassiriya.

The Syrian army has destroyed a ship carrying armed rebels on the Euphrates River in the northeast of the country, state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.

"An armed forces unit destroyed a ship on the Euphrates carrying terrorists with arms and ammunition," SANA reported, without providing further details.

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi on Saturday called for a national dialogue to resolve the country's crisis and said the army was fighting to protect the chances for talks.

"The only way to succeed in Syria is to sit down at the table to launch a national dialogue," Zohbi said in an interview with state television.

Three Gazans were killed and 30 injured by Israeli shelling on Saturday after militants fired an anti-tank rocket at an Israeli jeep, wounding four soldiers, sources on both sides said.

The flare-up was one of the most serious clashes in a single day since Israel's devastating 22-day operation in the Gaza Strip over New Year 2009.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill visited the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem on Saturday and met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, on the second day of his Holy Land trip.

After his visit to the Bethlehem church, built over the site where Christians believe Mary gave birth to Jesus in a stable, Kirill met with the Palestinian president at his office in the West Bank city.