Fiji has announced it will send a further 380 troops to join a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights, lifting the Pacific nation's contribution to 562.

The move comes after several countries withdrew from the peacekeeping force due to escalating violence stemming from the Syrian conflict.

Egypt's interim leader Adly Mansour launched an investigation into violence in Cairo that killed 42 people on Monday during an Islamist demonstration calling for the army to restore Mohammed Morsi as president.

"The president of the republic forms a judicial commission to investigate the events at the Republican Guard" headquarters, state television reported.

Gunmen shot dead an Egyptian soldier on Sunday during an attack on a checkpoint in the restive north of Sinai, a police official said.

The attack took place near the town of El-Arish, where Islamists this week stormed the provincial headquarters and raised the banner of Islamist militants.

Tunisia's public prosecutor is due to question 19 actors who were attacked by radical Salafist Muslims for alleged "indecent" behavior, their lawyer told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

The actors are to appear on Monday before the public prosecutor who is expected to charge them with "indecent acts", Ghazi Mrabet said, although the exact nature of what they are accused of remains unclear.

Hamas police in the Gaza Strip announced on Sunday they had uncovered a counterfeiting ring that had forged some 20 million Israeli shekels ($5.47 million, 4.26 million euros) in the coastal Palestinian territory.

Police spokesman Ayoub Abu Shaar told Agence France Presse three people were arrested last week "while distributing the false money in markets."

An Israeli warplane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday following a malfunction although both crew members were rescued unharmed, a military spokesman told Agence France Presse.

"An F16 combat aircraft crashed earlier today into the sea after its engine malfunctioned," he said.

Opponents of Egypt's deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi packed Tahrir Square in their tens of thousands on Sunday to show the world his ouster was not a military coup but the reflection of the people's will.

Staged as a counter-demonstration two days after Islamist rallies exploded into deadly violence, the protest raised the stakes as the country's interim leaders struggled to put together a new government.

Egypt's army had no choice but to overthrow Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Sunday.

Writing in the Observer newspaper, Blair, who acts as Middle East envoy for the United States, Russia, the EU and the U.N., said the army's only alternative would have been to let Egypt descend into chaos.

The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Massud Barzani, visited Baghdad on Sunday for the first time in years for landmark talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on an array of disputes.

Barzani met Maliki, after which the two held a joint news conference in the capital's heavily-fortified Green Zone -- a major change from last year, when the Kurdish leader was advocating the premier's removal from office.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that the standoff in Egypt between supporters and foes of deposed president Mohamed Morsi threatened to degenerate into a civil war.

"Syria is already in the grips of a civil war, unfortunately enough, and Egypt is moving in that direction," Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying while on a visit to Kazakhstan.