Syrian forces backed by helicopter gunships and tanks launched a deadly assault on parts of Damascus on Wednesday, activists said, as the regime battles to stamp out rebel resistance in the capital.

At least 37 people were reported killed in Damascus alone, a day after a top minister hinted that the embattled regime was ready to discuss President Bashar al-Assad's exit in any talks on ending the brutal 17-month conflict.

The Israeli foreign ministry dismissed as "unacceptable" a decision by the South African cabinet on Wednesday approving the placing of Occupied Palestinian Territory labels on imported goods from Jewish settlements.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said in a statement that the move constitutes "a blatant discrimination based on national and political distinction."

Egypt is searching for 120 wanted militants and believes around 1,600 extremists are hiding out in the Sinai, where militants have attacked soldiers and police, the official news agency MENA reported on Wednesday.

The military sent in tanks and soldiers into the lawless peninsula which neighbors Israel and Gaza after gunmen killed 16 soldiers in an attack on an army outpost on August 5.

Egyptian police arrested a man who threw two soda cans packed with gun powder at the German embassy on Wednesday, security officials said.

One of the two cans exploded inside the embassy's grounds, the officials said, adding that the 54-year-old man then threw a third can that did not explode at a policeman who was chasing him.

Egypt's interior ministry on Wednesday warned organizers planning a campaign of protests against President Mohammed Morsi on August 24 that it would respond "decisively" to any violence.

The protest leaders insist their campaign will be peaceful but Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement accuses them of coordinating with former regime figures to try to unseat the Islamist president.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon will go to a Non-Aligned summit in Tehran next week in the face of protests by Israel and calls by the United States to stay away from the event, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday.

Ban will "convey the clear concerns and expectations of the international community" on Iran's nuclear program, terrorism, human rights and the Syria civil war, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

A journalist from the cultural section of the government daily Tishrin was shot dead Wednesday at his home in Damascus during a search operation by the army, his friends said.

"They were looking for Musab al-Odallah and killed him because he was close to the opposition. He was in charge of the cultural section of Tishrin. This is murder," said one of the friends when contacted by telephone.

A Swiss radiation lab is awaiting a decision from Yasser Arafat's widow on whether it should conduct tests on the remains of the former Palestinian leader to see if he was poisoned, its spokesman said Wednesday.

The possible probe, which has already been requested by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, comes after a media investigation found elevated levels of the radioactive substance polonium on some of Arafat's belongings, suggesting he could have been poisoned.

Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi, the country's first civilian and Islamist head of state, will visit the United States on September 23, state media reported on Wednesday.

The official MENA news agency quoted Morsi's spokesman Yassir Ali as saying the president will attend a United Nations General Assembly session in New York and then head to Washington to meet "senior officials" during a three-day trip.

Iran is to host some 30 leaders, including those of India, Egypt and Cuba, at an August 30-31 summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that officials are billing as proof the Islamic republic is not as isolated as the West would like.

"So far, more than 100 countries have said they are ready to participate, and around 30 nations will be represented by presidents, prime ministers or vice-presidents, which is a very good number," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told the ISNA news agency.