Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members gathered behind police lines outside their Cairo headquarters on Friday in anticipation of an opposition march, a week after activists clashed with the Islamists.

The Brotherhood bussed in hundreds of supporters to stand guard outside its offices ahead of the opposition protest, set to begin after noon on Friday.

Egyptian villagers lynched a suspected car thief on Thursday, security sources said, in the latest in a spate of such vigilante killings in the face of growing lawlessness.

The lynching, in the Nile Delta village of Ezbat al-Gindy, came days after residents of another village strung up two suspected criminals in an incident described by the justice minister as a sign of the "death of the state".

Human Rights Watch on Thursday urged U.S. President Barack Obama on the eve of his Jordan visit to press King Abdullah II to accept Palestinian refugees and other asylum seekers at the Syrian border.

"Jordan is routinely and unlawfully rejecting Palestinian refugees, single males, and undocumented people seeking asylum at its border with Syria," HRW and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic said in a statement.

The Chaldean Catholic bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, said on Thursday that up to 30,000 Christians have fled the Syrian city and spoke of his concern about two priests kidnapped weeks ago.

Audo, who was in Rome as a representative of the Caritas-Syria charity for a meeting of regional humanitarian organizations, told Agence France Presse that the situation in the war-ravaged city was "painful".

Egypt has granted the Muslim Brotherhood non-governmental organization status, a minister said on Thursday, a day after judges said the Islamist movement had no legal standing.

The once banned movement, now in power, has come under increased scrutiny by the opposition and the largely hostile media, who say it is a secretive group with too much influence over President Mohamed Morsi, a former Brotherhood leader.

A suicide bomb attack on a mosque in central Damascus on Thursday killed 42 people, including a prominent pro-regime Sunni cleric and his grandson, and wounded 84 others, Syria's health ministry said as the opposition's chief condemned the bombing as a "crime".

"The number of those martyred in the terrorist suicide attack in the Iman Mosque rises to 42 martyrs with 84 injured," a bulletin on state television said, citing the ministry.

A hardline Islamist group claimed a rocket attack against southern Israel on Thursday, in a statement that condemned a historic visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to the region.

In a statement headlined "The demolition of Sderot by rocket bombardment in reaction to the visit of the dog Obama," the Salafist Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis group said it was responsible for an attack launched from Gaza.

Syrian rebels have gained ground in the Golan Heights, which is partly occupied by Israel, launching coordinated attacks in the area and in nearby Daraa province, a watchdog said on Thursday.

"It appears that the rebels launched coordinated attacks on multiple parts of the Golan, taking control of areas and villages in the province of Quneitra," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

Iran will "annihilate" the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if it comes under attack by the Jewish state, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Thursday.

"Every now and then the leaders of the Zionist regime threaten Iran with a military attack," Khamenei said in a live televised speech from the northeastern holy city of Mashhad, referring to Israel.

The United Nations will launch an independent investigation into a Syrian government allegation that opposition rebels staged a chemical weapons this week, U.N. leader Ban Ki-Moon said Thursday.

"I intend for this investigation to start as soon as practically possible," Ban told reporters.