Israel had a critical role in stopping a deal with Iran on reining in its nuclear program from going ahead last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

The deal would have "effectively left Iran as a threshold nuclear power," he told a Washington think-tank in a recorded speech.

Several suspects have been arrested in connection with an arson attack which last month targeted a Jewish-Arab school that is a rare symbol of coexistence in Jerusalem, Israeli police said Sunday.

"Police and Shin Bet (security services) have arrested several suspects for having set fire to a classroom of a bilingual school on November 29," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told Agence France-Presse.

Israel said Monday it will not allow "sophisticated weapons" to fall into the hands of its enemies, after furious claims from Syria that Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes near Damascus.

Tel Aviv refused to confirm or deny the strikes, but its forces have previously targeted weapons allegedly destined for arch-foe Lebanon's Hizbullah.

A woman from the United Arab Emirates who stabbed a U.S. teacher to death at an Abu Dhabi shopping mall acted alone and targeted her victim randomly, a security source said Sunday.

The woman, who was arrested following last Monday's lone wolf attack and the planting of a makeshift bomb outside the home of an American doctor, had no links to "terrorist" organizations, the source told the official WAM news agency.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem will visit Tehran this week for a conference on combating extremism that will also be attended by his Iraqi counterpart, Iranian state media said Sunday.

Muallem was set to meet with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who has already arrived in Tehran, as well as Iran's diplomacy chief Mohammad Javad Zarif at Monday's conference, said IRNA news agency.

A delegation of Syrian dissidents tolerated by President Bashar Assad's regime will travel to Russia this week for meetings with officials, days after government members discussed a new peace process there.

The meeting with Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov would include talks "on a political solution, the role of Syria-based opponents and (U.N. envoy) Staffan De Mistura's initiative," said delegation member Maher Merhej.

The British embassy in Cairo suspended public services on Sunday for security reasons, a spokesman for the mission said.

Embassy spokesman David Kinna declined to give details but said the decision was taken in the best interest of the embassy and its staff.

Ultra-orthodox Jewish women in Israel have begun an unprecedented campaign to have women candidates on the lists of religious parties for next March's early general election, media reported on Sunday.

"We want ultra-orthodox women -- five percent of the population -- to have a say in the Knesset and demand that the heads of the ultra-orthodox parties choose at least one candidate of their choice," activist Esty Reider-Indorsky, a driving force behind the move, told public radio.

Iranian students called on President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday to free two opposition leaders held under house arrest for years, Fars news agency reported.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi -- both regime insiders turned critics -- have been kept incommunicado since February 2011 after leading months of protests alleging fraud in their defeat by Rouhani's hardline predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Saudi Arabia said Sunday it has arrested 135 suspects for "terrorism" offenses, after the kingdom's participation in air strikes against Islamic State group extremists raised concerns about possible retaliation.

The suspects include 26 foreign nationals, mostly from Syria, interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki said, cited by the official Saudi Press Agency.