The newly formed Syrian opposition coalition is likely to get an offering of support from the European Union on Monday, an EU official said, in what would be a significant vote of confidence for a movement struggling to prove its credibility and gain the trust of the country's factions.

Such a move would not amount to official diplomatic recognition because that can only be decided by each EU country individually. But if the bloc's 27 foreign ministers meeting in Brussels decide that the coalition is a legitimate voice for Syria's people it would be a major step forward in the West's acceptance of the group.

Hundreds marched on Cairo's Tahrir Square on Monday to mark one year since deadly clashes that left 45 people dead, piling pressure on President Mohamed Morsi to bring his predecessor's police to account.

Around 50 political parties and movements took part in the commemoration, furious that a year after the clashes on Mohammed Mahmoud street, no police officers have been held accountable for the deaths.

An Iranian semi-official news agency says the country has started building a $10 billion natural gas pipeline to Syria as part of efforts to boost its energy sector that has been battered by international sanctions.

Monday's report by the Fars news agency says the 1,500 kilometer (750 mile) pipeline will pass through Iraq before reaching Syria. It says Iran begun construction of the first phase of the project involving a 225 kilometer (140 mile) stretch at an estimated cost of $3 billion.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said Monday his movement is committed to efforts to secure a truce with Israel, but insisted the Jewish state must lift its six-year blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"We are committed to a ceasefire, but Israel must stop its aggression," Meshaal said. “We don't want an escalation, because Hamas and all resistance factions are courageous but they are also rational," he added.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United Nations on Monday of failing to act over the deadly Israeli air bombardments of Gaza, calling Israeli a "terrorist state" that "massacres innocent children".

He accused the U.N. Security Council of "turning a blind eye" to the suffering of Muslims across the world and called for "sincere action" to end Israel's strikes on Gaza, where 90 Palestinians died since violence erupted on Wednesday, while three Israelis have been killed in militant rocket fire.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will travel to the Middle East on Monday for talks aimed at encouraging a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza militants, his spokesman said.

Westerwelle will meet his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman in Jerusalem late Monday before seeing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and his Qatari counterpart urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday, as Israel and militants in the Palestinian enclave traded fire for a sixth straight day.

"We are very worried about the escalating violence," Monti said at a joint news conference in Doha with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani.

The Algerian army has killed three Islamists in the restive Kabylie region, including Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb's top military commander, several Algerian newspapers reported on Monday.

Rabah Makhfi, 45, also known as Sheikh Nacer and considered AQMI leader Abdelmalek Droukdel's right hand man, was among the three killed in Bejaia, 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Algiers, on Friday, Arabic-language daily Ennahar reported.

Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas said on Monday they have decided to end infighting in a show of solidarity in the West Bank over the Gaza crisis, an AFP reporter said.

"From here, we announce with other (factional) leaders, that we are ending the division," senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told a crowd of about 1,000 who gathered for a demonstration in Ramallah, the West Bank's political capital.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday said the alliance would consider a request from Turkey to deploy Patriot anti-missile batteries along its border with Syria "as a matter of urgency.”

Rasmussen, arriving for a meeting of European Union defense ministers, said NATO had received no formal request from NATO-member Turkey to date but added that if one was made, "we will consider that as a matter of urgency.”