An Israeli raid to destroy a Gaza tunnel ignited clashes in which tank fire killed four Hamas commanders and five Israeli soldiers were wounded, both sides said Friday.

In one of the deadliest flareups in Gaza since an October 2012 conflict, warplanes carried out an air strike after Palestinian militants lobbed between one and three mortar shells into southern Israel.

An al-Qaida affiliated group has released a video purportedly showing escapees from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison carrying out executions, the U.S.-based SITE Monitoring Service said Thursday.

In July, militants attacked the notorious facility and another prison with mortars, bombs and gunfire, freeing at least 500 inmates in assaults that cost more than 40 lives.

An Egyptian military court has sentenced a journalist to a year in prison for impersonating an army officer over the phone, his newspaper and wife said on Thursday.

The ruling against Hatem Abul Nour, a journalist with the independent El-Watan newspaper, was issued on Wednesday, the newspaper reported.

A 24-year-old Syrian man set himself on fire near the Colosseum in Rome on Thursday in front of hundreds of horrified tourists, Italian media reported.

The man, referred to by the initials B. S in the reports, poured a bottle of lighter fluid over himself before setting himself alight.

At least eight people were killed in an army rocket attack on southern Damascus's Al-Hajar Al-Aswad neighborhood Thursday, a monitoring group said.

The "bombardment... which killed at least eight people, comes amid an escalation by the regime in southern Damascus and (rebel) areas in the countryside around it," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Thursday pleaded for a major global effort to combat the "virus" of al-Qaida and terror networks, likening the fight to a third world war.

In Washington for a series of meetings hoping to drum up more support for Iraq, Maliki said that with U.S. help his country had defeated al-Qaida.

The United States believes that Syria's large stock of chemical weapons will be destroyed on schedule by the end of June 2014, U.S. officials said Thursday.

"I am increasingly confident that we will be able to complete this task, the elimination of the Syria's chemical weapons program, within the target date of June 30th of next year," said Thomas Countryman, assistant secretary for international security and non-proliferation.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki on Thursday denounced Israeli plans to build hundreds of new settler homes in east Jerusalem, threatening to pursue international legal action in response.

Israel announced on Wednesday it would build 1,500 new settler homes in the mostly Arab sector of Jerusalem, immediately after the Jewish state released 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners in line with its commitments to U.S.-backed peace talks.

Syrian troops pressed an advance Thursday on the strategic area of Sfeira, the site of several arms factories near Aleppo, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Fierce clashes are raging between the rebels and regime troops on the eastern side of Sfeira, amid a loyalist advance on the town, as troops take control of a new area," said the Britain-based Observatory.

Syria's civil war has killed more than 120,000 people in 31 months, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday.

"We have documented the killing of 120,296 people since the start of the revolution in March 2011," said the Britain-based monitoring group.