A Jordanian woman has died of swine flu in the second such death in a week, Health Minister Abdullatif Wreikat said on Sunday.

"The woman, who was in her forties, was taken to hospital last Sunday, suffering from pneumonia," Wreikat told the official news agency Petra.

Israel's defense ministry has published plans for 170 new housing units and another 84 guest rooms in the West Bank settlement of Rotem in the Jordan Valley, anti-settlement activists said on Sunday.

The settlement itself previously received government approval, but no building plan was set out, according to Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now organization.

The United Nations appealed on Thursday for urgent aid to help thousands of Syrian refugees in a Jordanian camp who are battling mud, water and freezing temperatures in the worst winter storm in a decade.

"The resources we raised in 2012 have been exhausted, and no fresh funds have come for this year. We urgently appeal to the international community and donors in general to commit fresh funding as soon as possible," U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) Jordan representative, Dominique Hyde said in a statement.

Iraq will close its border with Jordan on Wednesday due to anti-government protests that have blocked the main highway linking the two countries, a military official said.

"We received orders from the defense ministry to close the border because of demonstrations that continue to block the motorway," the official said on Tuesday.

Thousands took to the streets in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq on Tuesday in a show of support for the Shiite premier after more than two weeks of protests in the mainly Sunni Arab north and west.

The loyalist rallies are the latest twist in a long-running standoff within Iraq's unity government between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his mainly Sunni Arab critics who accuse him of abusing counter-terror legislation to persecute the minority community.

Humanitarian workers distributing aid to Syrian refugees in northern Jordan after destructive rains were injured in a "stampede" on Tuesday, officials said.

"Refugees started to push each other as they ran towards the aid workers. They hurled stones at each other and there was a stampede, which hurt some aid workers," Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for refugee affairs, told Agence France Presse.

The H1N1 influenza strain known as swine flu killed a 26-year-old Jordanian man on Sunday, Health Minister Abdullatif Wreikat said on Sunday.

"The 26-year-old died in hospital today in Irbid," in northern Jordan, Wreikat told state-run Petra news agency.

Nearly 9,000 Syrians, mostly women and children, fled to Jordan over the past six days to escape the bloodshed in their homeland, a government spokesman told AFP on Sunday.

"Some 8,835 Syrians fled to the kingdom since January 1 this year," said Anmar Hmud, a government spokesman for Syrian refugee affairs.

Jordan's elections commission on Wednesday approved an electoral list that was initially forbidden from registering under the name "Saddam Hussein," after the group agreed to change its title, state media said.

"The list has been accepted after it changed its name to the 'Nation's Honour.' Now we have 61 approved lists" for legislative elections this month, commission spokesman Hussein Bani Hani told the official news agency Petra.

Jordan's elections commission on Wednesday approved an electoral list that was initially forbidden from registering under the name "Saddam Hussein," after the group agreed to change its title, state media said.

"The list has been accepted after it changed its name to the 'Nation's Honor.' Now we have 61 approved lists" for legislative elections this month, commission spokesman Hussein Bani Hani told the official news agency Petra.