A Tunisian cigarette vendor who set himself alight in a street of the capital Tunis has died from the severe burns he suffered, a medical official said on Wednesday.

Twenty-seven-year-old Adel Khadri, who torched himself on Tuesday, "died today at 5:30 am (0430 GMT) as a result of severe burns," Imed Toiuibi, the director of the Ben Arous Burns Centre, told Agence France Prese.

A Saudi firing squad Wednesday executed in public seven men convicted of armed robbery despite last-minute appeals by rights groups that their lives be spared, the interior ministry and a witness said.

The condemned men were convicted of "forming a gang that carried out several armed robberies and thefts with the help of other people," the ministry said in a statement published on the official SPA news agency.

Children are being increasingly recruited on the frontline in Syria's war, with both sides to the conflict using boys as soldiers and even human shields, a British charity said on Wednesday.

Save the Children said in a report marking two years of violence in Syria that two million children were innocent victims of the bloody conflict that the United Nations says has cost at least 70,000 lives.

Israeli troops shot dead a Hamas militant and wounded two other Palestinians during a clash with stone-throwers near the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, Palestinian security officials said.

They named the dead man as Mahmud al-Titi, 23, and said he was a member of the militant Islamic group.

Britain would consider ignoring a European Union arms ban and supplying weapons to Syrian rebels if it would help topple President Bashar Assad, Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday.

The EU last month amended its embargo to allow member nations to supply "non-lethal" equipment and training to the opposition but stopped short of lifting the embargo entirely.

Fifty-five Egyptian Christians arrested last month in Libya for allegedly seeking to convert Muslims have been freed, while four others are still behind bars, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"Our embassy has been assured of the release of 55 people and is actively working to seek the release of four others who are still in detention," deputy spokesman Nazih al-Naggary told Agence France Presse.

France, Russia and the United States are trying to draw up a list of Syrian officials with whom the opposition can negotiate, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Tuesday.

"We worked together on an idea... of a list of Syrian officials who would be acceptable to Syria's opposition National Coalition," he told the foreign affairs committee of the National Assembly.

Three U.N. human rights experts Tuesday urged Saudi Arabia to halt the imminent execution of seven men sentenced to death for armed robbery, saying their case had breached international standards of justice.

In a joint statement, the United Nations monitors said the men, due to face the death penalty Wednesday, allegedly had been convicted on the basis of trumped-up charges and flawed trails.

Russia's emergencies ministry on Tuesday airlifted 103 Russians and citizens of former Soviet republics from Syria amid continuing violence in the strife-torn country, news reports said.

The Il-62 plane left from Latakia airport in western Syria where President Bashar Assad enjoys his strongest support at 1440 GMT, news agencies quoted a ministry spokeswoman as saying.

Around 10 tonnes of Russian food aid and blankets arrived Tuesday in Syria, where an uprising against the regime of Moscow ally prepared to enter its third year, state news agency SANA reported.

"A Russian plane landed at Bassel Assad airport in (the coastal province of) Latakia on Tuesday, carrying 10 tonnes of food aid and blankets," said SANA.