Rocket fire from Gaza and Syria hit Israel early Monday in two separate incidents that prompted the Israeli military to hit back, just hours before the swearing in of a new Palestinian government.

The exchanges of fire took place as Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was to unveil a new government pieced together as part of a surprise April reconciliation agreement between leaders in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, that has been fiercely opposed by Israel.

A long-awaited Palestinian unity government was sworn in before President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday after a landmark reconciliation deal with the Islamist Hamas that has infuriated Israel.

Following a ceremony at the Muqataa presidential compound in Ramallah, Abbas hailed "the end" of a bitter and sometimes bloody divide between his Fatah movement and the rival Hamas which rules Gaza.

At least 41 people have been killed in clashes between rival Sudanese clans over the ownership of land being explored for oil in West Kordofan state, a tribal source said.

Another 13 people were seriously wounded in the fighting that raged through to Sunday between the Zurug and Awlad Amran clans of the powerful Misseriya tribe, the source told Agence France Presse.

Syria on Sunday wrapped up campaigning for the June 3 presidential election expected to return Bashar Assad to power, a vote the opposition brands a "parody of democracy."

With swathes of Syria out of government control, Tuesday's vote will only take place in regime-held territory, far from where Assad's forces are battling the rebels who seek to topple him.

An Egyptian court that sentenced to death 37 Islamists and handed life terms to 492 others defended its verdict on Sunday, saying the men were "demons" who followed Jewish scripture.

The court in the central city of Minya had triggered international outrage earlier this year for sentencing to death hundreds of alleged supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in two separate mass trials which only lasted minuted.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula announced Sunday it has executed four people accused of placing tracking devices on vehicles to help U.S. drones target jihadists.

In a video posted online by AQAP, four suspects described as "spies" say they placed tracking devices on the vehicles of jihadists killed in drone attacks two years ago in the southern Shabwa province.

Sudan denied on Sunday a Christian Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy would be freed soon, saying quotes attributed to a foreign ministry official had been taken out of context.

Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag was sentenced to death on May 15 under the Islamic sharia law that has been in place since 1983 and outlaws conversions under pain of death.

Attacks across Iraq killed 16 people on Sunday, while new figures showed violence last month claimed more than 900 lives as the country grapples with its worst bloodshed in years.

Data compiled separately by the United Nations and the Iraqi defense, interior and health ministries showed that unrest was near its worst since 2008, when it was slowly emerging from a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian war.

Ex-general Khalifa Haftar's forces launched fresh air raids on Islamists in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday, just hours after al-Qaida urged Libyans to fight the rogue general.

Last month, the general unleashed forces from his so-called National Army on Islamist militias in Benghazi in a campaign dubbed "Operation Dignity."

The most radical jihadist group fighting in Syria on Sunday killed a 102-year-old man along with his whole family in the heart of the country, a monitoring group said.

The 102-year-old was shot dead in his sleep, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also killing his son, his grandson, his great-granddaughter and her mother, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.