Egypt's presidency said Sunday it was "saddened" by the deaths of 72 people at a protest in support of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, but linked the bloodshed to "terrorism".

"We are saddened by the spilling of blood on the 27th," Mostafa Hegazy, an adviser to army-backed interim president Adly Mansour, told reporters.

Disappointment over the lack of democratic progress in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is understandable, but the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 will take time to mature, analysts say, warning that the process will be chaotic.

"We have to stop using seasonal metaphors. We are in a revolutionary process that will take at least a decade," says Karim Emile Bitar, an expert on Arab affairs at the Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations.

The Israeli government on Sunday approved the contentious release of long-serving Palestinian and Israeli Arab prisoners, to coincide with the resumption of peace talks, public radio said.

It said that the 22-member cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal by 13 votes to seven with two abstentions.

Kuwait's government resigned Sunday in line with the constitution after parliamentary polls, the country's second since December, and the ruling emir asked the cabinet to stay on in a caretaker role.

A day after the elections, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state, accepted the resignation but asked Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah and his ministers to stay on until a new cabinet is formed, state news agency KUNA reported.

Conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari on Sunday called for the release of political prisoners in Iran and questioned the ongoing house arrests of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

A vocal critic of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Motahari broached the topic in a statement read on the floor of conservative-dominated parliament, less than a week before moderate president-elect Hassan Rowhani takes office on August 3.

The head of the main Syrian Kurdish party said Sunday that Turkey had changed its position and would provide the Kurds in the war-ravaged country with humanitarian aid.

"A promise has been made. Turkey is going to help our people in all areas. That is to say it will provide humanitarian aid," said Saleh Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in an interview published Sunday in the Turkish daily Milliyet.

Syrian forces backed by Hizbullah fighters on Sunday consolidated their grip over a key rebel district in flashpoint Homs as they pressed to retake the central city, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops now controlled most of Khaldiyeh where they seized an ancient mosque and concentrated on fighting insurgents on the outskirts of the district.

Egyptian security forces killed 10 "terrorist" gunmen and captured 20 in an operation in the Sinai Peninsula over the past 48 hours, state news agency MENA reported on Sunday.

"Security operations carried out by the armed forces and police in north Sinai to hunt down armed terrorists... (resulted) in the liquidation of 10 of these armed terrorist elements," the agency said, citing a security source.

The Israeli government approved a bill on Sunday to submit any peace treaty with the Palestinians to a referendum, a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said.

"Any agreement which may be reached in negotiations will be put to a referendum," it quoted him as saying. "It is important that on such historic decisions every citizen should vote directly on an issue deciding the country's future."

Thirty-one migrants, including nine women, drowned off the coast of Libya during an attempted crossing to Italy according to survivors who managed to complete the journey, Italian media reported Sunday.

A dinghy carrying 53 migrants capsized on Friday evening, and witnesses said 31 of those who had been thrown off it drowned in the accident.