U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday to try to ease tensions over the Iran nuclear deal, as the Israeli leader urged lawmakers in Washington to reject the hard-won agreement.

The two men greeted each other with a long handshake before entering the meeting that lasted nearly two hours, making no comment about the tensions over the nuclear accord that Netanyahu has harshly condemned.

Syrian rebels, including al-Qaida-affiliated fighters, have fired hundreds of rockets and mortar shells on two besieged Shiite-majority villages in the northwestern province of Idlib, a monitor said Tuesday.

At least seven people were reported killed in the shelling by the Army of Conquest alliance on the regime-held villages of Fuaa and Kafraya on Monday and Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A car bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed four people near a Shiite mosque in the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa, the Shiite rebels said.

Children were among eight people wounded in the Monday evening blast, the rebel-controlled Saba news agency said.

Uruguay will take in a new group of Syrian refugees by the end of the year, officials said Monday, adding that the country was committed to helping alleviate a humanitarian crisis.

A total of 117 family members are being relocated to Uruguay from refugee camps in Lebanon.

The European Union (EU) promised Monday to boost political and economic support for Tunisia to ensure its transition to democracy was not derailed by last month's deadly attack on a tourist resort.

The attack on the resort of Sousse left 38 tourists dead, most of them British, and came just months after the deaths of 22 people in an attack on the Bardo Museum in the capital Tunis in March.

Most Israeli Jews favor the reconstruction of a block of settlements in the Gaza Strip, a decade after Israel withdrew from the Palestinian territory, a poll published on Monday showed.

Some 51 percent of Israeli Jews said they were in favor of rebuilding the Gush Katif group of settlements, located in southern Gaza and where more than 8,000 Israelis lived prior to the 2005 withdrawal.

Germany believes Iran should rethink its stance on Israel as last week's nuclear deal means it must "bear new responsibilities, at home and abroad", a top German official said Monday.

The comments from Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's economy minister and Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy, came during a trip to Tehran aimed at rebuilding badly affected trade ties.

Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Israel of "abusive arrests" of Palestinian children as young as 11 and of using threats to force them to sign confessions.

Israeli authorities failed to inform parents of their children's arrest or whereabouts, the New York-based watchdog added, drawing on accounts of several children detained during intense unrest in east Jerusalem and the West Bank late last year.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter visited Israel on Monday in a bid to ease concerns over the nuclear deal with Iran, signaling Washington was ready to boost military cooperation with the Jewish state.

Israel was Carter's first stop on a regional tour following last week's historic agreement between Iran and world powers, underlining the importance of the relationship between the two countries despite frictions over the accord.

A suspected Islamic State suicide bomber killed at least 31 people Monday in an attack on a Turkish cultural center where activists had gathered to prepare for an aid mission in the nearby Syrian town of Kobane.

The blast ripped through the center in Suruc -- a town just across the border from Kobane, which was itself later hit by a suicide car bombing -- blowing out the windows and starting a fire, witnesses said.