An Israeli minister on Wednesday warned of punitive action if the Palestinians pursued efforts to join U.N. agencies, as hopes of a breakthrough in the U.S.-led peace process faded rapidly.

In a surprise announcement late on Tuesday, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said he had begun steps to join 15 U.N. agencies, angering Israel and prompting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to cancel an imminent a trip to Ramallah.

Campaigning for Iraq's April 30 elections will be "highly divisive" as parties appeal to their sectarian bases at a time of worsening violence, the U.N.'s envoy to Baghdad has warned.

Nickolay Mladenov also pushed for Iraqi leaders to urgently pass a much-delayed annual budget within two weeks, noting that further postponing the spending bill would badly impact on drawing much-needed business and investment to the country.

Syria's exiled opposition chief Ahmad Jarba visited Latakia province Tuesday, amid a rebel offensive against the heartland of President Bashar Assad's clan and his Alawite sect, his office said.

"The president of the Syrian National Coalition Ahmad Jarba visited the Jabal Turkman... and Jabal Akrad" areas of Latakia, the opposition chief's office said in an email.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry cancelled plans to travel Wednesday to Ramallah after both the Israelis and the Palestinians announced moves likely to scuttle the peace talks.

"We are no longer travelling tomorrow," a senior State Department official said, shortly after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians would seek membership of 15 U.N. agencies.

President Barack Obama has so far made no decision to free U.S.-born Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to boost hopes of extending peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House said Tuesday.

The Israelis have repeatedly asked Obama and previous U.S. presidents to release Pollard, who is serving his sentence in North Carolina for passing U.S. secrets on Arab and Pakistani weapons to Israel during the mid 1980s.

Egypt's top prosecutor called Tuesday for a probe into funds allegedly received by the only serious rival of ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in an upcoming presidential election, sources said.

Public prosecutor Hisham Barakat issued the call after a lawyer filed a complaint about funds that Egyptian businessmen allegedly provided to leftist leader Hamdeen Sabbahi, the judicial sources said.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas signed a request to join several U.N. agencies on Tuesday, in a move that could derail a U.S. push to revive faltering peace talks with Israel.

"The Palestinian leadership has unanimously approved a decision to seek membership of 15 U.N. agencies and international treaties, beginning with the Fourth Geneva Convention," Abbas said on television after signing the demand during a meeting at his Ramallah headquarters.

Clashes erupted Tuesday between student supporters of Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi and security forces in several cities, wounding at least 33 people, the health ministry said.

The violence came as registration of candidates for the May 26-27 presidential election entered its second day, with former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led Morsi's ouster last July, widely expected to win.

The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem condemned Tuesday an assault by vandals overnight on a Roman Catholic convent, demanding that police catch the perpetrators.

The vandals daubed "Mary is a cow" and "America (is) Nazi Germany" on the walls of the Deir Rafat convent and slashed the tires of five vehicles parked nearby, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Two Yemeni policemen and two al-Qaida suspects were killed in a clash Tuesday when extremists attacked a checkpoint in a bid to free four arrested comrades, the interior ministry said.

The clash erupted after the security services detained "four al-Qaida militants at a checkpoint in (the western province of) Hudaydah" at dawn, the ministry said in a statement.