Israel intercepted and destroyed a rocket fired from Egyptian territory at the Red Sea town of Eilat overnight, Israeli public radio said Tuesday.

A jihadist group had earlier said they fired a Grad rocket at Eilat in retaliation for an alleged Israeli air raid.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Palestinians "not to react adversely" Monday to Israel's announcement of more settlement building, and stressed the importance of "getting to the table quickly."

The chief U.S. diplomat, visiting Colombia, said that Israel's announcement on new settlements was "to some degree expected" and he did not think it would become a "speed bump" to a recently relaunched peace process.

Some 14,000 prisoners who escaped from various Libyan detention centers after the 2011 uprising against Moammar Gadhafi are still on the run, the interior minister said Monday.

Speaking less than three weeks after more than 1,200 detainees escaped during riots from a prison in the eastern city of Benghazi, Mohamed al-Cheikh told ministry officials the interior and justice ministries were "working together to get them back to prison so they can serve out their sentences".

Tunisia's army on Monday bombarded suspected jihadist positions in a rugged mountain range near the Algerian border, as it kept up operations against Islamists following a deadly ambush on troops.

The offensive was launched on August 1, after eight soldiers were found with their throats cut after being ambushed by militants, and at a time of deep political crisis in Tunisia.

Gaza Strip rulers Hamas on Monday said peace talks with Israel were "futile," repeating its rejection of negotiations that are due to resume between Palestinians and Israelis this week.

"We renew our rejection of these futile talks, and consider them purely a means for the occupation (Israel) to look good to the international community," senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told a news conference in Gaza.

The United States said Monday it had expressed "serious concerns" over Israel's decision to allow settlers to continue building on Palestinian land despite new peace talks.

Israel plans to issue tenders for 1,000 new housing units in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, in the face of anger from Palestinian negotiators.

Bombers killed 24 people in Iraq on Monday, 16 of them in a suicide attack on a cafe north of Baghdad, officials said.

The other bombings hit a football field and a market, the latest in a upsurge of violence that has killed more than 3,400 people so far this year, according to an Agence France Presse tally.

International arrest warrants have been issued for former energy minister Chekib Khelil and eight others in connection with a corruption case at energy firm Sonatrach, Algeria's prosecutor general said Monday.

Khelil's wife, their two children, his right-hand man Farid Bedjaoui and the former head of his office Redha Hamche also face arrest, Belkacem Zeghmati told a news conference in Algiers.

Nearly 60 Syrian soldiers and jihadists have been killed in three days of fighting in Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria, where rebels have made advances, an NGO said Monday.

At least 33 fighters of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front have been killed since Saturday, according to the Syria Observatory for Human Rights.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday slammed the EU's stance on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, saying they would hamper peace talks with the Palestinians.

His criticism came after Israel approved the construction of more than 1,000 new settlement units, in a move which infuriated Palestinians ahead of Wednesday's resumption of peace negotiations.