An international rights group urged the United States, where Yemen's outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh is staying, to probe his forces' deadly crackdown on opponents during a year-long uprising.

"The United States has an obligation to investigate the serious and credible allegations of torture and other widespread violations brought against Saleh," the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said in a statement late Tuesday.

Syria's embattled leader, Bashar Assad, appears to be losing one of his last bastions of reliable support: the Druze Arab community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In the snow-covered villages of this strategic highland, Druze are quietly breaking a long-standing code of silence and — for the first time since Israel captured the Golan from Syria in 1967 — holding protests against the Syrian government for its brutal crackdown on opponents. Anti-Syria graffiti has sprouted up, and hundreds of people have joined a Golan-linked Facebook group critical of Assad.

The prime minister's top spokesman has resigned six months into the job, Israeli media reported Wednesday, injecting new turmoil into Benjamin Netanyahu's troubled bureau shortly before an important White House visit.

Israeli newspapers, TV and radio stations reported that Yoaz Hendel quit after Netanyahu criticized the way he handled suspicions against the prime minister's chief of staff Natan Eshel, who was forced out this week over a sexual harassment scandal.

The landmark murder and corruption trial of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak enters its last day of hearings on Wednesday, with the judge expected to announce the date of the verdict.

The trial could see the toppled dictator, his interior minister Habib al-Adly and six security chiefs sent to the gallows if convicted of complicity in the deaths of peaceful protesters during the uprising that overthrew him a year ago.

Jordan said on Tuesday it will take part in an international conference in Tunisia on the deadly unrest in Syria, while insisting the kingdom is against foreign military intervention.

Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said he will attend the "friends of Syria" conference in Tunis on Friday aimed at finding ways to end the Syrian regime's bloody repression of protests.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration said Tuesday it did not favor arming Syria's opposition but did not rule out the idea completely amid deadly clashes with Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Senator John McCain, a senior Republican and Obama's rival in the last presidential election in 2008, made a new call Monday on a visit to the region for Syria's rebels to be given weapons to "defend themselves."

Libyan officials from the port city of Misrata are barring thousands of displaced people from returning to two villages and allowing militias to loot and burn the area, a rights group said on Tuesday.

"Tomina and Kararim are ghost towns because Misrata officials are blocking thousands of people who fled from returning home," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of New-York based Human Rights Watch.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Tuesday called for a daily truce of two hours in Syria so it can deliver vital aid, as the U.N. urged Syria to allow aid groups unimpeded access to the country.

The ICRC has been in talks with Syrian authorities and rebels to try to agree a temporary halt to the fighting so it can get access to the worst affected areas.

The party belonging to the powerful Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday slammed the "failure" of the military-appointed government, and renewed its call for a national consensus cabinet.

"Egypt still suffers increasing economic and security crises which confirms the failure of the current government," the Freedom and Justice Party said in a statement.

A Palestinian prisoner has ended his 66-day hunger strike over his detention without charge under a deal that will see him released in April, Palestinian and Israeli officials told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"The Israeli court decided to release Khader Adnan on April 17 and based on that he ended his hunger strike," Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Issa Qaraqaa said.