Syrians rallied in their thousands after weekly prayers on Friday, pledging support to a newly-formed opposition front and calling for an end to President Bashar Assad's regime, activists said.

Sirte was rocked by deadly street fighting on Friday in what troops from the new regime said was the final assault on Moammar Gadhafi's besieged hometown, with orders that they take it "today."

Medics said at least four regime fighters had been killed and dozens more wounded from fighting on the west side of the city, and an Agence France Presse correspondent said ambulances continued to arrive in a steady stream at a nearby field hospital.

Syria will shortly present the United Nations with a list of more than 1,100 people it says have been killed by "terrorists" in ongoing unrest in the country, its deputy foreign minister said Friday.

"Syria is grappling with terrorist threats," Faysal Mekdad said in a speech to the 47-state U.N. Human Rights Council at it reviewed the situation in Syria.

A 16-year-old Shiite protester has been shot dead by Bahraini security forces during a demonstration in western Manama, the al-Wefaq opposition group said on Friday.

Ahmed Jaber al-Qatan was hit Thursday night by bird shot used by anti-riot police in the Gulf kingdom ruled by the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty, where the Shiite majority led pro-democracy protests that were quashed in mid-March.

Israel limited access to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday for fear of violence on the Muslim weekly day of prayer, which leads directly into Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, police said.

The restrictions were part of a wider lockdown, under which the army closed all entry points from the West Bank on Thursday night.

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday barred nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu from emigrating on the grounds he still poses a threat to state security, Israeli media reported.

Vanunu, under orders to stay in Tel Aviv and not to speak to journalists, "has proved several times he cannot be trusted and does not respect the letter of the law," Supreme Court judges said in turning down his appeal.

The European Union is preparing to target a Syrian commercial bank and 29 Iranians accused of human rights violations in fresh sanctions to be announced in the coming days, EU diplomats said Thursday.

A decision to blacklist a commercial bank is expected to be formally adopted in the coming days and come into force at the end of next week, several diplomatic sources told Agence France Presse.

Deposed strongman Moammar Gadhafi called on Libyans to turn out in their millions to demonstrate against the country's new rulers, in an audio message broadcast Thursday on Syria-based Arrai television.

"I call on the Libyan people, men and women, to go out into the squares and the streets and in all the cities in their millions" to reject the National Transitional Council, he said in the poor quality broadcast.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Europe on Wednesday to back the "Palestinian Spring" by supporting his government's bid to win a place at the United Nations.

"Today we are at the heart of the Arab Spring: we say that the hour of the Palestinian Spring has struck," he said in a speech to the parliamentary assembly of the 47-nation Council of Europe.

An official source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied on Thursday media reports that a meeting was recently held between President Bashar Assad and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, labeling them as untrue, reported the state news agency SANA.

The source said that the last meeting between the two officials took place in August, adding “no messages were conveyed from or to anyone during the meeting.”