A leader of the ruling Hamas said Saturday the militant group had agreed to try anew an Egypt-brokered ceasefire with Israel, after six days of bloodshed in and around the Gaza Strip.

Hamas and "the Palestinian resistance factions will respect the truce as long as the (forces) of the occupation do the same and that's what we told our Egyptian brothers who demanded that we cease fire," Ayman Taha told Agence France Presse.

SNC chief Abdel Basset Sayda dismissed on Saturday the new line-up as a sham and charged that Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for the past four decades, was incapable of bringing about any meaningful reform.

"The announcement of this government aims to give the impression that reforms have been brought in and that the only thing left was to form the government," Sayda told Agence France Presse by telephone in Beirut.

Tensions soared in Egypt on Saturday a day before the result of a divisive presidential election and as the Muslim Brotherhood sparred with the ruling generals over what it sees as a military power grab.

The electoral commission overseeing the divisive contest between Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi and former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said it will announce the official winner on Sunday.

Iraq's foreign minister warned on Saturday of the danger that the Syrian crisis might spill over into neighboring states, and insisted that Iraq have a role in the future of Syria.

Syria, where President Bashar Assad's regime launched a brutal crackdown on opponents in March 2011 that has left thousands dead, shares a roughly 600-kilometer (372-mile) border with Iraq.

The armed wing of the Hamas movement which rules Gaza threatened Saturday to end a three-day-old Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel following a flurry of air strikes.

"The air raids by the Zionist enemy are new crimes. We will not stay silent in the face of the crimes," a statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said.

Yemeni troops took control on Saturday of the southeastern town of Azzan, a known Al-Qaida bastion, after the group's fighters left it a week ago, an official said.

Thirty-five people, meanwhile, were killed in the southern Abyan province over the past 10 days in explosions from landmines laid by Al-Qaida fighters before they fled from the province, officials said.

Saudi Arabia is set to pay the salaries of the rebel Free Syrian Army to encourage mass defections from President Bashar Assad's forces, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday.

The payments would be made in either U.S. dollars or euros -- which would mean a rise in salaries as the Syrian pound has fallen sharply in value since the revolt started 16 months ago, the broadsheet said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree on Saturday forming a new government, state television said, less than two months after controversial parliamentary elections boycotted by the opposition.

"President Bashar Assad has issued Decree 210 forming a new government under prime minister Dr Riad Hijab," the television said.

At least 40 people were killed on Saturday in violence across Syria, the majority by regime forces who shelled rebel bastions and clashed with opposition fighters in several areas, a watchdog said.

The casualties included at least 10 regime troops who had tried to desert in Damascus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Three Palestinians were killed and an Israeli wounded in air raids and rocket fire Saturday, medics said, as the armed wing of Hamas threatened to call off an Egypt-brokered truce.

"The air raids by the Zionist enemy are new crimes. We will not stay silent in the face of the crimes," said Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades of the Islamist movement Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip.