Air strikes have hit bakeries and hospitals among other civilian targets in Syria, a watchdog reported Thursday, accusing the regime of killing thousands in such raids it said amounted to war crimes.

"Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war wilfully -- that is intentionally or recklessly -- are responsible for war crimes," HRW said in a report titled "Death from the Skies.”

A U.N. humanitarian official said on Wednesday a fresh round of Israeli sanctions on the Gaza Strip was hitting food supplies and would have "serious" effects if continued.

"In response to a deteriorating security situation in and around Gaza... Israel has announced a series of heightened restrictions on the movement of people and goods to and from the Gaza Strip, including closures of the Kerem Shalom crossing," U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator James W Rawley said.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has ordered the withdrawal of complaints filed against journalists for publishing rumors about him, said a statement posted Wednesday on the presidency's Twitter account.

"The president has ordered the withdrawal of all legal complaints filed against journalists for publishing rumors on him," the statement said.

Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi on Wednesday named the eldest son of ousted dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh as the country's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, state television reported.

With the decision, Ahmed Abdullah Saleh is to leave the army and a rival of his, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, becomes adviser to the president for military and security affairs, said the television.

A pledge of allegiance by Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group battling Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, to al-Qaida could backfire and undermine its hard-won support on the ground, analysts say.

The rebel group, which has spearheaded the violent uprising against Assad's forces, made the announcement in an audio message in which its leader said it was committed to al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The core group of the "Friends of Syria" will meet next week in Istanbul and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend, a senior U.S. State Department official said Wednesday.

"The secretary will be attending the next core group meeting in Istanbul on Saturday the 20th," the official said, asking not to be identified.

Attacks on security forces north of Baghdad killed three soldiers and a policeman on Wednesday, police and medics said, the latest in an uptick in violence less than two weeks ahead of elections.

In the main northern city of Mosul, gunmen attacked a military checkpoint, killing the soldiers.

Two young Tunisians who sprayed slogans on a school building were cleared by a court on Wednesday of "harming public order" in a case seen by some as an attack on the right to freedom of expression.

Oussama Bouajila and Chahine Berriche, members of urban art collective Zwewla, sprayed "The poor are Tunisia's living dead", and "The people want rights for the poor" on a school building in the southern city of Gabes last year.

The Israeli army rearrested a Palestinian former prison hunger striker in the West Bank on Wednesday, nearly a year after his release, a Palestinian official said.

Thaer Halahla, 35, who was held without charge by Israel for almost two years until June 2012, was rearrested in Ramallah, an official in the Palestinian Authority's ministry for prisoners' affairs told Agence France Presse.

An Arab Israeli was indicted on Wednesday for contact with an enemy agent after he went to Syria and joined rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad, security officials said.

Hikmat Massarwa, from Taibe village in Galilee, was also charged at Lod District Court with undergoing military training and for travelling overseas illegally, the Shin Bet domestic security agency said.