A general was killed and 30 other troops loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh were taken hostage when tribesmen overnight attacked their base north of Sanaa, tribal sources and officials said on Monday.

General Abdullah al-Kulaibi, head of the 63rd brigade of the elite Republican Guard unit, was killed in the attack by tribesman opposed to Saleh's rule in the strategic town of Nihm, the defense ministry said in a statement.

EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton has appointed an advisor to mull over the fate of thousands of outlawed Iranians facing expulsion from a camp in Iraq, their home for 30 years.

A spokesman for Ashton said Monday that Jean De Ruyt, Belgium's former ambassador to the EU, will act in Brussels "as an advisor on the European Union's response" to Camp Ashraf, located near the border with Iran and home to some 3,400 Iranian dissidents.

Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya on Monday called for an inter-Palestinian strategic dialogue to decide on a joint strategy for establishing a Palestinian state.

"We are in favor of a strategic dialogue that will lead to a joint strategy regarding Palestine and activating the reconciliation we signed," he told reporters, referring to a unity deal between Hamas and its Fatah rivals which was signed in May but has yet to be implemented.

Yemen's opposition held mass protests Monday, escalating demands for the immediate departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh after the ailing leader said his future should be determined at the ballot box.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched in two demonstrations, one for men and another for women, from Change Square, epicenter of anti-regime protests which have rocked Yemen since late January, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Anti-Gadhafi fighters Monday encircled the ousted leader's hometown of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast from the east, south and west and NATO warplanes pounded the city for a third straight day.

The siege of one of Moammar Gadhafi's last bastions comes as Libya's new rulers said they had unearthed a mass grave in Tripoli of 1,700 prisoners slain by his regime in a 1996 uprising, a massacre that helped trigger the revolt that ousted the despot.

An Israeli court has ordered the government to pay $432,000 to the family of a prominent Palestinian peace activist whose 10-year-old daughter was killed by an Israeli rubber bullet in 2007.

Abir Aramin was standing at a distance from stone-throwing demonstrators in the village of Anata, north of Jerusalem, when Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse the protest. One hit Abir, and she died of her wounds two days later.

Saudi King Abdullah urged Yemenis Sunday to implement the Gulf Initiative by which President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who returned from the kingdom two days ago, would transfer power to his deputy.

"We see that the Gulf Initiative is still the exit to resolve the Yemeni crisis and prevent the situation (there) from getting worse," said King Abdullah in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

A Bahraini special court jailed Sunday the head of the teachers' union for 10 years and his deputy for three, among other Shiites over their role in anti-regime protests, BNA state news agency said.

The verdicts came a day after the kingdom held by-elections boycotted by the Shiite-led opposition to replace 18 Shiite MPs who quit the parliament to protest the violence used against demonstrators in February.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Sunday he is ready for a power transfer through early elections, saying he is "committed" to a plan brokered by Gulf states.

"You who are running after power, let us head together toward the ballot boxes," Saleh said in a speech aired on state television on the 49th anniversary of the September 26, 1962 revolution that saw Yemen proclaimed a republic.

Libya's new rulers said Sunday they have unearthed a mass grave of 1,700 prisoners slain by Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in a 1996 uprising, a massacre that helped trigger the revolt that ousted the despot.

The gruesome find came as hundreds of the National Transitional Council's fighters thrust into Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte from the east and NATO warplanes pounded the coastal city for a second straight day.