A Syrian monitoring group said Friday it has documented the deaths of 41 Palestinian refugees in besieged Yarmuk camp as a result of food and medical shortages, including women and children.

"Food and medical shortages have killed at least 41 people in the past three months in Yarmuk" in southern Damascus, which has been under suffocating army siege ever since rebel groups took control of it, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Tunisia's premier-designate Mehdi Jomaa was tasked Friday with forming a cabinet of independents to end months of political deadlock and lead the country to fresh elections after the Islamist-led government finally quit.

Jomaa's appointment after his predecessor Ali Larayedh's resignation on Thursday, under an agreement to get Tunisia's democratic transition back on track, comes nearly three years after veteran strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's overthrow in the first Arab Spring uprising.

The United States on Friday blacklisted Libyan militant groups it accuses of involvement in a 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi in which the ambassador and three more Americans died.

The State Department named two groups known as Ansar al-Sharia from the eastern Libyan cities of Benghazi and Darnah and their leaders, and a third affiliated organization from Tunisia.

Three people were killed in Egypt Friday in clashes between supporters and opponents of deposed president Mohammed Morsi, and police arrested dozens of Islamists across the country, security officials said.

A police officer said a street vendor was shot dead in clashes between Morsi's Islamist supporters and civilian opponents in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.

Russian diplomats told a top visiting U.S. dignitary on Friday that Moscow would continue backing Syrian President Bashar Assad's campaign against rebel forces despite peace talks due later this month.

U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman's visit came ahead of a crunch meeting in Paris on Monday between her boss John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that will focus on Moscow's push to give Syrian ally Iran a formal seat at the so-called Geneva 2 conference.

The U.N. refugee agency Friday warned that Israel could be in breach of international law due to new rules that pave the way for the potentially indefinite detention of asylum-seekers.

Under legislation passed last month which has sparked mass protests by Africans in Israel, people who arrive illegally can be detained for up to a year without trial.

Algeria Friday defended its controversial military intervention to end the bloody seizure by armed Islamists last year of the In Amenas desert gas plant, in which 38 hostages were killed.

"The intervention by the Algerian security forces was imperative for saving hundreds of human lives and for protecting a strategic site that the terrorists were planning to blow up," foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani said in a statement.

Tunisia was waiting Friday for the president to task Premier-designate Mehdi Jomaa with forming a cabinet of independents to lead the country to fresh elections after the Islamist-led government finally quit.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ali Larayedh's resignation on Thursday, under an agreement to end months of political deadlock and get Tunisia's democratic transition back on track, comes nearly three years after veteran strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's overthrow in the first Arab Spring uprising.

Israeli plans unveiled Friday to build over 1,800 settler homes are a signal to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry not to pursue his peace push, a top Palestinian negotiator said.

"The new settlement construction plan is a message from (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu to Kerry not to come back to the region to continue his efforts in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," Saeb Erakat told AFP.

Israel unveiled plans Friday to build more than 1,800 new settler homes, a move the Palestinians said was a signal to the U.S. to abandon efforts for Middle East peace.

The announcement comes a week after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region in his latest attempt to push Israeli and Palestinian leaders towards an elusive peace deal.