U.S. President Barack Obama's three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories will begin on March 20, Israel said on Sunday, in the first official announcement of the much-anticipated visit.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau said Obama was due to arrive Wednesday, March 20, at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv and then head to Jerusalem for talks with President Shimon Peres and a dinner meeting with Netanyahu.

Discontent in Egypt's police ranks has boiled over into an unprecedented strike, with officers saying they will refuse orders until they are no longer used as political pawns, adding to the problems of President Mohamed Morsi.

Accused of excessive use of force by the opponents of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, police officers say they feel despised by the people when they are simply following orders -- and they will not take any more.

Syria's National Coalition has for the second time in weeks postponed talks on the formation of an interim government, a senior member of the opposition grouping said Sunday, citing "deep rifts" on the issue.

The meeting was initially scheduled for last month in Istanbul but was postponed until Tuesday this week. It has now been delayed again, with a possible new date between March 18 and 20, said Samir Nashar.

Egypt's interior minister pleaded on Sunday for an end to "rumors" of police abuse, saying his forces had never fired a single shot at protesters since the start of the 2011 uprising.

Mohammed Ibrahim, who is facing an unprecedented strike by thousands of police officers across the country calling for his resignation, told reporters the media was waging an attack against the ministry and spreading lies.

The number of Syrian refugees, which just passed the million mark, could double or triple by the end of the year if no solution is found to the conflict, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Sunday.

"Now if this escalation goes on and nothing happens to solve the problem we might have in the end of the year a much larger number of refugees: twice or three times the present level," he told reporters in Ankara.

As the Arab Spring blossomed two years ago, a heady breeze brought hopes of democracy, human rights and a better life to countries across the Middle East and North Africa, including Syria.

But while dictatorships fell in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, President Bashar Assad clung to power in Damascus, unleashing a brutal crackdown on what began as a peaceful pro-reform movement.

Rebel groups including the jihadist Al-Nusra Front have set up a religious council to administer affairs in the east of Syria which is mostly under their control, a rights watchdog said on Sunday.

"God commanded the Islamic battalions to form a religious council in the east to administer the affairs of the people and fill a security gap," the groups said in a statement distributed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syria insurgents launched a surprise dawn raid Sunday to retake a key district of the central city of Homs, as Islamists set up a religious council to administer rebel-held areas of the oil-rich east.

Activists said the raid sparked fierce fighting on the ground and saw President Bashar Assad's forces call in air strikes in a bid to repulse the rebel fighters.

South Yemen leaders vowed at a meeting in Dubai to continue talks on participating in a national dialogue this month to end the country's political crisis, as a separatist faction withdrew from the meeting.

"We have decided to continue the meetings to make a decision on our participation" in the U.N.-brokered talks which will begin on March 18, said Salem Saleh Mohammed on Sunday. He did not say where the meetings would be held.

The Philippine government on Sunday welcomed the release of its 21 U.N. peacekeepers after they were freed by Syrian rebels and crossed into Jordan, where officials waited to receive them.

The troops, members of a U.N. force monitoring a 1974 ceasefire between Syria and Israel, were abducted on Wednesday.