Egypt's army-backed government pleaded Saturday for support for its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, warning that the world must not justify "terrorism."

Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy made his appeal in a speech at the annual United Nations General Assembly as hundreds of flag-waving protesters staged a noisy rally against him outside the global body's headquarters.

The UGTT trade union confederation mediating crisis talks in Tunisia said Saturday that the ruling Islamist Ennahda party had agreed to a plan for talks on a new government.

The country's largest union confederation called on the Islamists and the secular opposition to agree on a date next week for a "national dialogue" aimed at ending a crisis sparked by the murder of a prominent opposition MP in July.

Egypt recalled its ambassador from Tunisia on Saturday after the Tunisian president demanded the release of deposed leader Mohammed Morsi, state television reported.

The Egyptian foreign ministry recalled its ambassador for "consultations," state television reported.

Gunmen shot dead an Egyptian soldier in Sinai on Saturday as army helicopters carried out air strikes on suspected militant hideouts, medics and witnesses said.

The 22-year-old conscript died of a chest wound after the attack in the northern town of Sheikh Zuwayid, medics said.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel overnight, the army said on Saturday, but no casualties or damage were reported.

A tweet from the official military account said the rocket struck open ground near the port city of Ashkelon just northeast of the Islamist Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave.

An al-Qaida front group in Syria says girls in a village it controls will not be allowed to attend school unless they wear Islamic clothing, a monitoring group said Saturday.

In Tweihineh, "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant... has forbidden girls in primary education and above from attending school unless they wear fully Islamic clothing including an abaya (gown), gloves and a veil," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Gunmen severely wounded an army colonel from Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi's extended family in the restive south on Saturday in an attack blamed by a security official on al-Qaida.

"Colonel Ali Nasser Dambur was hit by four bullets fired by one of two people on a motorbike in Seyun" in Hadramawt province, the official said.

Syria's main opposition group has lost its bargaining power ahead of any potential peace conference, after rebels withdrew their support and a U.N. resolution failed to meet its expectations.

With talks aimed at bringing about an end to the civil war planned for November in Geneva, the opposition feels more abandoned than ever by its friends in the West.

The United Arab Emirates has recalled its ambassador from Tunisia to protest calls by the Tunisian president for the liberation of Egypt's deposed head of state, reports said Saturday.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki had called on the UAE-backed new rulers in Cairo to free Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president deposed in a military-led coup on July 3, in a speech this week at the U.N. General Assembly.

China welcomed a United Nations resolution aimed at destroying Syria's chemical arms, and urged the major powers to ensure their decisions "can stand the test of history", state media reported Saturday.

Beijing was "heartened" to see the landmark U.N. Security Council resolution on Friday which ordered the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons and condemned a murderous poison gas attack in Damascus, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.