Israel carried out four air strikes on the Gaza Strip late Tuesday in retaliation for rocket fire against southern Israel, an army spokesman said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

A drone strike in Yemen's southeastern Hadramawt province killed three al-Qaida suspects on Tuesday, local authority officials said.

The three men were travelling in the Wadi Houaira area when a missile hit their vehicle, the sources said.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that 19 of its 20 construction projects in Gaza had ground to a halt because of an Israeli block on building materials.

UNRWA chief Filippo Grandi told donor representatives that since March the agency had "not had any construction projects cleared by the Israeli government, and for the past month, has been unable to import building materials."

The trial of a suspected British pedophile in Morocco has been adjourned until January after his Moroccan lawyer withdrew from the case, an activist present in the courtroom told Agence France Presse.

Robert Bill appeared at Tuesday's hearing, in the northern town of Tetouan, which was also attended by relatives of his three alleged Moroccan victims, said Mohammed Benaissa, who heads the Northern Observatory for Human Rights.

Amnesty International criticized the "inhumane conditions" at an overcrowded Bulgarian refugee camp Tuesday as more than 100 asylum-seekers, many fleeing the conflict in Syria, started a hunger strike in protest.

"We witnessed the deplorable conditions where some 1,000 asylum-seekers are being held in metal containers, tents and a dilapidated building of a former military complex," Amnesty researcher Barbora Cernusankova said after visiting the Harmanli camp in southeastern Bulgaria.

The United Nations will stop paying wages to thousands of workers helping Palestinian refugees next month because of a growing cash crisis, a top U.N. official said Tuesday.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), one of the U.N.'s oldest agencies, faces a "dire situation" with a $36 million deficit, under secretary general Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council.

An Arab ministerial committee charged with monitoring the Middle East peace process blamed Israel for the impasse in negotiations with the Palestinians after a Tuesday meeting in Kuwait.

"Israel is responsible for the deep crisis in negotiations because of its intensifying of settlements (construction), repeated attacks against the sacred Al-Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem), seizing of Palestinian lands, and strengthening the blockade against Gaza," it said in a statement.

Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi could stay in power after his term ends in February 2014 due to delays in implementing a transition agreement, the U.N. envoy to Yemen said Tuesday.

Hadi was elected for a two-year interim period in February 2012, after his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a power transfer deal bowing to a year-long uprising against his 33-year rule.

Flash floods sparked by torrential rain in largely desert Saudi Arabia have killed four people and left 10 missing over the past two days, the civil defense authority said Tuesday.

Two of the dead and seven of the missing were in the capital Riyadh, with the rest coming in the northeastern city of Arar, the authority said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged a visiting Syrian regime delegation on Tuesday to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the multitude of civilians left destitute by war.

Lavrov met Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad for talks aimed at preparing Russia's main Middle East ally for a peace conference in Geneva, which world diplomats hope to convene mid-December.