Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas pledged on Wednesday to "speed up" work with Hamas to form a new caretaker government and to prepare for fresh elections.

In an address to the Palestinian leadership timed to mark seven years since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat and the 23rd anniversary of their declaration of independence, Abbas vowed to push ahead with efforts to cement a landmark unity deal between Fatah and Hamas.

Iran is to send an "analytical" response to a report suggesting it was pursuing nuclear weapons, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday, a day before the U.N. watchdog meets on the issue.

"We have decided to draft and send an analytical letter with logical and rational responses to (International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya) Amano's recent report," the Iranian state television website quoted Salehi as saying.

United Nations Resident Coordinator for Lebanon Robert Watkins said that the report on Lebanon’s implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 will be sent to New York on Tuesday to be discussed at the Council on November 29.

Watkins held a meeting on Monday with Prime Minister Najib Miqati to inform him of the content of the report.

Israeli air raids on the northern Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian overnight and wounded four others, doctors said Monday, after a rocket attack on Israeli territory.

The raids destroyed a security post of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and left two other Palestinians missing, they said.

A week of deadly violence in the central Syrian city of Homs piled pressure on Arab foreign ministers gathering for an emergency meeting in Cairo Saturday to take action against Damascus for failing to honor an Arab League peace deal.

President Bashar Assad's regime agreed on November 2 to an Arab roadmap which called for the release of detainees, the withdrawal of the army from urban areas and free movement for observers and the media, as well as negotiations with the opposition.

One person died and several were hurt in clashes Thursday in the flashpoint city of Taez and the capital Sanaa during protests calling for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's prosecution, medics and witnesses said.

The bloodletting came as U.N. envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar arrived in Sanaa in an attempt to resolve the political crisis that has thrown the country into a spiral of violence in which hundreds have died since January.

The European Union said Wednesday a U.N. atomic watchdog warning that Iran has worked towards building nuclear warheads "seriously aggravates" existing concerns over a military dimension in Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's report "seriously aggravates existing concerns on the nature of the Iranian nuclear program, since this report puts particular emphasis on information corroborated by the IAEA regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," said a spokeswoman.

Iran's envoy to the IAEA said Wednesday his country "will never compromise its legitimate rights" in pursuing its atomic program, as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country "will not budge an iota" from its nuclear path.

The Iranian statements came a day after a U.N. report affirmed that credible evidence suggested Tehran was pursuing atomic weapons.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton stressed during talks with PM Najib Miqati the importance of implementing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Lebanon “should continue to implement international resolutions,” Ashton told Miqati during talks in London on Tuesday.

Russia warned on Monday that a possible military strike against Iran would be a "very serious mistake" that leads to further conflict and civilian casualties.

"It would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a warning by Israeli President Shimon Peres that an attack was increasingly likely.