U.N. chemical weapons experts, in Syria to investigate alleged use of the banned arms, on Sunday left their Damascus hotel to carry out a new mission, an Agence France Presse photographer said.

The experts, who arrived in the Syrian capital last Wednesday on their second visit in two months, headed out on board four U.N. vehicles.

Israel's Shin Bet security service on Sunday announced the arrest on September 11 of an Iranian "spy" carrying photographs of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv.

News of the arrest was released just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington and New York, determined to expose what he described as "sweet talk" by Israel's arch-foe Iran.

An air strike on a high school in a rebel-held city of northern Syria killed 12 people, most of them pupils, on Sunday, a monitoring group said.

"The Syrian air force bombed a technical high school in the city of Raqa, killing 12 people, most of them children under 18, and wounding many other people, some of them seriously," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Hackers have attacked the official website of the Jordanian prime minister's office, the information minister said on Sunday, in a protest over rising prices.

"We have restored the website after it was hacked last night for several hours," Mohammad Momani told Agence France Presse.

President Shimon Peres said on Sunday that Israel's reaction to landmark contacts between the United States and Iran had been too "scornful" of its key ally.

His comments came just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington for talks with President Barack Obama, determined to expose what he described as "sweet talk" by Israel's arch-foe.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the Israeli team in peace talks with the Palestinians, said late Saturday in Washington that a two-state solution was in her country's best interest.

"The only way to keep Israeli values as a democratic state is by adopting the idea of two states for two people," one for Israelis and the other for Palestinians, Livni said at a conference held by J Street, a leftist pro-Israel lobbying group.

At least 14 Egyptians were killed when a truck and a minibus collided head-on near the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya on Saturday, medics said.

Bad driving and lax enforcement of traffic regulations are often blamed for the high frequency of road accidents in Egypt.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon held his first meeting Saturday with the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition in a bid to press for a Syria peace conference.

The meeting is likely to infuriate President Bashar Assad's government, which is still recognized by the United Nations and routinely calls the coalition and other opposition groups "terrorists."

Syria is "comfortable" with a U.N. Security Council resolution on destroying its chemical weapons and will not discuss the future of President Bashar Assad, the country's foreign minister said Saturday.

Walid Muallem told reporters the resolution voted by the 15-nation council late Friday meant the opposition could be the target of U.N. sanctions.

Germany is ready to give finance and technical support to the international operation to destroy Syria's chemical weapons, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Saturday.

Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, however, he demanded that chemical attacks in Syria be investigated by the International Criminal Court.