Libyan rebels on Monday rejected an African Union initiative for a ceasefire accepted by Moammar Gadhafi, and said the only acceptable solution was the ouster of the veteran strongman.

The rebel rejection came after NATO chiefs warned that any deal must be "credible and verifiable," and as alliance warplanes were again in operation against Gadhafi armor pounding the cities of Ajdabiya and Misrata.

A military court has jailed a blogger for three years for criticizing the armed forces that have ruled Egypt since president Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February, in a decision slammed by rights groups on Monday.

"Regrettably, the Nasr City military court sentenced Maikel Nabil to three years in prison," the blogger's lawyer Gamal Eid told Agence France Presse.

Syrian students rallied in front of Damascus University on Monday in solidarity with protesters killed in the flashpoint towns of Daraa and Banias.

“Youngman Fadi al-Assmi was martyred at the hands of Syrian security forces during protests at Damascus University’s Faculty of Science,” Prominent Syrian human rights activist Suheir al-Atasi wrote on her facebook page.

Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Monday welcomed Gulf "efforts" to end his country's political crisis, saying he was ready for a "peaceful" transfer of power in a constitutional way, according to a statement from his office.

"In compliance with statements (he) made several times ... the president has no reservation against transferring power peacefully and smoothly within the framework of the constitution," said the statement.

Syrian troops encircled the flashpoint coastal town of Banias Monday, where weekend shootings left 13 dead and scores wounded, a human rights activist said.

"Seventeen tanks were deployed" to Banias, the activist told Agence France Presse, adding that the army had surrounded the northwestern city and electricity had been cut off.

Libyan rebels said Monday that any ceasefire would require the withdrawal of government troops from the streets and freedom of expression, as African mediators were due in their stronghold.

"The people must be allowed to go into the streets to express their opinion and the soldiers must return to their barracks," Shamsiddin Abdulmolah, a spokesman for the rebels' Transitional National Council, told Agence France Presse.

Yemen anti-regime protesters have rejected a proposal from mediating Gulf States that embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh should pass power to his deputy, a leading activist said Monday.

"We are not concerned by any solution negotiated between the regime and the opposition that does not answer our main demand: the fall of the regime and its figures," said Adel al-Rabyi, from the Youth for Change coalition of protest groups that have led demonstrations across the country since late January.

Israel should not settle for a truce with Hamas in Gaza, and should instead seek to topple the Islamist rulers of the coastal strip, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.

"The goal that we have settled on, of seeking a return to calm, is a grave error because it will allow Hamas to reinforce along the lines of Hizbullah," Lieberman told public radio.

Iran has expelled "several" Kuwaiti diplomats in retaliation for the expulsion of Tehran's diplomats accused of spying in the Gulf emirate, the Arabic-language al-Alam television reported on Sunday.

"Iran expelled in retaliation several Kuwaiti diplomats," the station announced, quoting an informed source who did not reveal how many diplomats had been asked to leave the country.

Syrian security forces killed a total of 28 people on Friday, human rights activists said Sunday.

Twenty-six died at the funerals of protesters killed in and around the southern agricultural town of Daraa, while two more were shot dead in the industrial town of Homs, in west central Syria.