Hundreds of Salafist Islamists protested outside the Egyptian National Security Agency's headquarters in Cairo on Thursday, accusing the powerful security service of harassing them.

Some of the Islamists briefly tried to break past the gates of the headquarters, an Agence France Presse correspondent said, while others harassed journalists and tried to break an AFP cameraman's equipment.

The United States is taking a fresh look at whether to provide weapons to Syria's rebels after having rejected the idea previously, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday.

At a news conference with his British counterpart Philip Hammond, Hagel was asked if the U.S. government was rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels and replied: "Yes."

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon discussed deadlocked efforts to end the Syria conflict with the major powers on Thursday amid mounting signs that peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is to quit.

Diplomats and U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky confirmed the meeting but declined to say whether Brahimi has already told the United Nations and Arab League that he would be leaving.

Twenty people have died and four people remain missing in Saudi Arabia after heavy downpours triggered flash floods in the desert kingdom for nearly a week, the civil defense authorities said on Thursday.

People have drowned in several areas of Saudi Arabia, according to a statement by the civil defense quoted by SPA state news agency.

An Israeli military appeals court on Thursday ordered the release of two Palestinian prisoners held without trial since November, who had staged a three-month hunger strike, a prisoners' rights group said.

Sarahna Amani, a spokesman for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners' Club told Agence France Presse that Jaafar Ezzeddine and Tariq Qaadan would be freed on May 8.

The Tunisian university dean accused of slapping a veiled female student said he was acquitted on Thursday, in a case that has come to symbolize bristling tensions between Islamists and secularists.

Habib Kazdaghli said "Tunisian justice acquitted me," adding that his accuser and another female student on trial for having sacked his office at Manouba University outside Tunis had been given a suspended two-month sentence.

Five Turkish security officers and two civilians were wounded on Thursday after Syrians trying to cross over into Turkey randomly opened fired in a border buffer-zone, officials said.

"It started as a minor stone-and-stick clash when our security forces warned Syrians," who were trying to cross the common border in large numbers, said Abdulhakim Ayhan, mayor of the border town of Akcakale.

Fierce clashes between troops and rebels erupted on Thursday for the first time in a Sunni Muslim village in the Alawite-majority coastal region of Banias in northwestern Syria, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting broke out in the morning and killed at least seven soldiers, while the official SANA news agency reported that troops killed "terrorists" -- the regime's term for insurgents.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he would put any peace deal reached with the Palestinians to a referendum, in a meeting with the Swiss foreign minister.

"If we get to a peace agreement with the Palestinians, I'd like to bring it to a referendum. And I'd like to talk to you about your experiences with that," Netanyahu told Didier Burkhalter, the premier's office said in a statement.

Covering the war ravaging Syria for more than two years has become one of the world's most dangerous jobs, with reporters not only facing injury or death during fighting but also the rising risk of kidnapping.

As the United Nations marks International Press Freedom day on Friday, at least seven journalists are missing inside Syria, including American journalist James Foley, a video contributor to Agence France Presse who has not been heard from since last November.