Tunisian voters on Saturday weighed their choices on the eve of the Arab Spring's historic first elections nine months after the surprise toppling of strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali that started it all.

Campaigning ended at midnight for the vote the previously banned Islamist al-Nahda party is tipped to win, with the ISIE independent polling commission reminding candidates and journalists that Saturday would be an "election silence day".

Faced with suspicions of an execution by a lynch mob, the order that "nobody here killed Gadhafi" has gone around to the fighters who captured alive the ex-strongman of Libya.

The fighters at a farm on the outskirts of the city of Misrata that serves as their al-Ghiran brigade base proudly exhibit the ousted leader's black boots, gold-plated gun and beige scarf.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Libya's ousted despot Moammar Gadhafi are unclear and an investigation is needed, the U.N. human rights chief said Friday.

"On the issue of Gadhafi's death yesterday, the circumstances are still unclear," Navi Pillay's spokesman Rupert Colville said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to partially freeze West Bank settlement building if it will bring the Palestinians back to direct talks, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

According to Haaretz, the offer was made in a conversation with Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin on Wednesday during a surprise visit to the region in order to try and help the parties reach some kind of agreement on how to resume talks.

The United Nations is considering moving the offices of its headquarters in Beirut to the Coral Beach Hotel as it has previously done in 2007, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday.

“The offices will be relocated in a timeframe no longer than two weeks,” the daily said.

The Palestinians are not ready to resume dialogue with Israel as sought by the Mideast diplomatic Quartet, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Wednesday.

"Our own assessment is that the conditions are not ripe at this juncture for a meaningful resumption of talks," he said at the annual gala for the American Task Force on Palestine, a pro-Palestinian lobby.

Activists said at least 15 civilians and seven soldiers were killed on Wednesday in the latest violence sweeping protest-hit Syria, including deadly clashes near the Lebanese border.

Syria's leading opposition grouping, the Syrian National Council, meanwhile, threatened to seek foreign intervention to stop the regime's deadly crackdown against pro-democracy protesters.

At least five protesters were killed and dozens wounded on Tuesday as gunmen loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire at demonstrators in the Yemeni capital, an Agence France Presse journalist and medics said.

The bodies of two demonstrators were taken earlier to a makeshift hospital in Change Square, where anti-Saleh protesters have camped out, an AFP photographer said. Dozens of demonstrators were wounded or hurt by tear gas.

The Parliament held on Tuesday a session to select the members of committees and Parliament’s bureau, An Nahar newspaper reported.

The parliamentary session ended by re-electing the parliament bureau members and making slight changes in the membership of the parliament committees.

Syrian soldiers fought gunmen suspected to be army defectors in the flashpoint central province of Homs on Monday in clashes that left five troops dead, a human rights group said.

"Five soldiers were killed and others wounded as a result of clashes pitting the army and security forces against gunmen believed to be defectors at a checkpoint near the town of Qurayn in Homs province," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Agence France Presse.