Republican lawmakers urged President Barack Obama on Sunday to repair U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia, after the critical Gulf ally protested against Washington's policy on Syria and Iran.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said the rift with Riyadh has been developing over the past two years, pointing to a 2011 U.S. decision to keep the Syrian conflict at bay and the "quick rush to the sweet talk" from Iran on its suspect nuclear program in recent months.

Stability in the Gulf monarchies is essential for Egypt's security, Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi said Sunday, a day after the United Arab Emirates pledged Cairo an extra $3.9 billion (2.8 billion euros) in aid.

The UAE and other Gulf monarchies backed the July 3 overthrow of Egypt's Islamist president Mohammed Morsi and have vowed to help the interim government address the economic devastation wrought by two years of political turmoil.

Iran's parliament, dominated by conservatives, on Sunday approved two new members of moderate President Hassan Rouhani's government but rejected a third, media reported.

Ali Asghar Fani was approved for education and Reza Faraji Dana for the science, research and technology portfolio, but legislators rejected Reza Salehi Amiri, who had been nominated to become minister of sports and youth.

Jihadists have released a video of a suicide bombing in which an ex-army major reveals himself as the attacker who tried to kill Egypt's interior minister in September.

A senior interior ministry official confirmed the bomber, Walid Badr, was a major in the military before his expulsion in 2005 for "extremist" views.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told visiting U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi Sunday that part of a solution to the Syria crisis is to expel "terrorist groups" from that country, a report said.

"Iran believes that by continuing humanitarian aid, preventing the entry (and) expelling terrorist groups from Syria and the complete destruction of chemical weapons will be first important steps for achieving stable peace in Syria," Rouhani said in comments reported by the official IRNA news agency.

The Israeli foreign ministry has named Middle East specialist Haim Koren as the Jewish state's next ambassador to Egypt, a spokesman told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

He did not say when the appointment take effect.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a mortar shell into Israel on Sunday without causing any casualties or damage to property, the Israeli military said.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli military told Agence France Presse that the shell struck near the border fence with the coastal strip, which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Iran is capable of converting low-grade uranium to weapons-grade within weeks.

"Iran is prepared to give up enriching uranium to 20 percent and therefore debate on this subject is unimportant," Netanyahu's office quoted him as saying at a weekly meeting of his cabinet.

Syria handed over a detailed plan to destroy its chemical stockpile on time, international watchdog OPCW said Sunday.

"On 24 October 2013, the Syrian Arab Republic submitted to the OPCW its formal initial declaration covering its chemical weapons program," the watchdog said in a statement, adding that Damascus had had until Sunday to do so.

Bahrain's appeals court on Sunday cut the jail terms of two policemen convicted of torturing to death a Shiite detainee after a 2011 crackdown on protests, a judicial source said.

The court reduced the terms of the men from seven years to three after a lower court had convicted them in December over Abdul Karim Fakhrawi's death in custody in April 2011.