Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday branded Israel's air raids in Syria "unacceptable" but again called on the international community to act over killings by regime forces.

"No excuse can justify this operation," Erdogan told ruling party lawmakers after Israel's weekend strikes on military sites in the war-torn country sent regional tensions soaring.

Iran on Tuesday warned against any "provocations" in the Gulf as a U.S.-led international naval force began a massive minesweeping exercise.

"Any movement in the region will be fully monitored by our defense forces," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters when asked about the largest exercise of its kind in the region scheduled to begin next week.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi will appoint nine new ministers in a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday, state media reported, in a shake-up that falls short of opposition demands.

At least two of the new ministers are affiliated with Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement, with the new appointments including the finance, oil and justice portfolios, the official MENA news agency reported.

Bahraini security forces have arrested four people suspected of attacking a police checkpoint with petrol bombs south of Manama at the weekend, the interior ministry said.

"Four of the terrorists who attacked police checkpoint on Sunday evening with petrol bombs have been arrested," the ministry said late Monday.

A mortar shell fired from Syria exploded in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, hitting an open field without causing any casualties or damage, an army spokeswoman said.

It was the third incident of fire from the civil war in neighboring Syria straying across the ceasefire line in 24 hours and came as tensions soared after Israel carried out weekend air strikes near Damascus.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a freeze on publishing tenders for new West Bank settler homes to avoid hampering U.S. efforts to renew peace talks, army radio reported on Tuesday.

He informed Housing Minister Uri Ariel about the decision several days ago, before his departure for China, the radio said.

Iran began Tuesday a five-day registration period for candidates in a June 14 presidential election, with a string of conservative hopefuls in the running but key reformists yet to come forward, reports said.

The interior ministry started registering candidates from 8:00 am (0330 GMT), according to the media reports.

A top U.S. Senate Democrat introduced a bill Monday that authorizes arming rebels in Syria, a step Washington has been weighing after President Barack Obama said the Damascus regime may have used chemical weapons.

Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced the Syria Stabilization Act of 2013 that would give "increased authorization to provide lethal and non-lethal assistance to Syrian armed opposition."

Turkish and Israeli officials have come "close" to a deal on compensation for the Jewish state's deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla after talks in Jerusalem on Monday, the Israeli premier's office said.

"The meeting was positive," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement

Hundreds of pro-independence Sahrawi activists marched in Laayoune at the weekend, the Western Sahara's largest city, in the biggest protest in several decades, Moroccan press reported Monday.

Some 500 people marched peacefully late on Saturday afternoon, but violence broke out in the evening after the protest, wounding 21 policemen, according to several papers.