Israel deployed significant security reinforcements on Friday in the occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem for demonstrations commemorating the deaths in 1976 of Arab Israelis on "Land Day.”

"Thousands of police reinforcements have been deployed in Jerusalem including in the Old City to prevent disorder," a police spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, who surprised everyone by resigning his post, will complete his six-month term before stepping down, a U.S. official said Thursday.

Khatib, a former imam, was only elected to head the Syrian opposition coalition in November after significant pressure from Washington to get the rebels to unify and be more inclusive.

The U.N. children's fund on Thursday called for "major mobilization" in Morocco against the phenomenon of child labor after a young house maid died from burns in the southern coastal resort of Agadir.

The Moroccan teenager died after suffering serious burns to her hands and face, an NGO said on Tuesday, adding that her employer is in police custody.

Russia said Thursday it will strongly oppose any bid to give Syria's U.N. seat to the rebel coalition fighting President Bashar Assad.

Russia's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin said recognizing the Syrian National Council would "undercut the standing of the U.N.."

The U.N. refugee agency sounded the alarm Thursday over reports that Turkey deported Syrians after clashes in a camp where they had sought refuge, but Ankara rejected claims they were forced back to the war-ravaged country.

On Wednesday, police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse Syrians protesting after a fire in the camp -- which houses some 25,000 refugees -- killed a child and injured three other people, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported.

Umm Ahmed and Umm Ibrahim watch over simmering casseroles containing dozens of kilos of rice and noodle soup, as they help prepare meals for a growing number of poverty-stricken residents of Aleppo, once Syria's commercial hub.

The two young women work for the Multaqa Harair Suriya, or association of free Syrian women, which is tasked with preparing and distributing meals in several districts of the country's largest city in the north.

A Syrian MP from the southern province of Daraa bordering Jordan on Thursday painted a bleak picture of the situation there, saying that insurgents have seized part of the main highway to Damascus.

"Syria is no longer going through a crisis. It is plunged in total war. Terrorism has spread in Syria and so has chaos. This is reality, and all Syrians know it," Walid al-Zohbi told parliament in a session broadcast live on state television.

A Bahrain appeals court on Thursday acquitted 21 Shiite medics who had been sentenced to three months in jail each for taking part in anti-regime protests in 2011, lawyers said.

Two other medics did not appeal the November verdict meted out to the 23 defendants of three months in prison or payment of 200 dinars ($530), the lawyers said, without elaborating.

Supporters of fugitive Salafist leader Abu Iyadh, wanted over a deadly attack on the U.S. embassy last September, threatened Thursday to topple Tunisia's government led by moderate Islamist party Ennahda.

"To the leaders of Ennahda, if he remains restrain your sick one, otherwise he will be the target of our war to bring him down," said a post on the Facebook page of jihadist group Ansar al-Sharia, referring to Ennahda Prime Minister Ali Larayedh.

Algerian security forces have killed five Islamists this week in the restive region of Kabylie, including an "emir" and a jihadist recently sentenced to death in absentia, reports said on Thursday.

The special forces killed the five men on Monday evening and Tuesday in a raid on the village of Attouche, in the Makouda area, near the main Kabylie city of Tizi Ouzou, Liberty newspaper quoted security sources as saying.