Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya will Monday meet the head of an Islamic aid group whose Gaza-bound vessel was stormed by Israeli troops in 2010 in a raid that left nine activists dead.

Haniya, who is making his first trip abroad since Hamas rose to power in Gaza in 2007, will tour the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara and meet relatives of the victims.

A group claiming to represent the majority of the opposition movements inside Syria declared Thursday the foundation of a "National Alliance" of revolutionary forces aiming to topple the regime.

"The regime has killed, maimed, arrested, tortured and displaced tens of thousands of people," Mohammed Bessam Imadi, a former Syrian ambassador to Sweden, told a press conference in Istanbul.

An earthquake of 5.1 magnitude hit the Aegean Sea on Monday, with no reports of casualties or damages, Turkish media reported.

The quake struck at 0817 GMT, with its epicenter in the Aegean, the Anatolia news agency said, citing the Istanbul-based Kandilli seismological institute.

A Libyan gunman wounded two people Wednesday in one of Istanbul's top tourist attractions Wednesday before being killed by police after an hour-long shootout, authorities and local media said.

The man entered the Topkapi Palace on the banks of the Bosphorus Strait and began shooting in all directions with a pump action shotgun, NTV television quoted Istanbul police Chief Huseyin Capkin as saying.

A 5.0 magnitude tremor shook the eastern Turkish province of Van overnight without causing damage or casualties in an area already ravaged by two deadly earthquakes, media said on Tuesday.

The tremor at about 00:27 GMT panicked the region's residents, many of them still living in tent camps since an October 23 earthquake killed more than 600 people, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish police arrested more than 70 people in simultaneous raids around the country on Tuesday for suspected links to outlawed Kurdish rebels, media reports said.

Lawyers for jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan who are members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were among those arrested, security sources from the southeastern province of Diyarbakir said.

A Kurdish rebel who hijacked a Turkish ferry with 24 people aboard was killed early Saturday and all his hostages brought to safety after an ordeal of more than 12 hours, authorities said.

"Soon after the beginning of an operation (by Turkish security forces), the hijacker was captured dead," Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu told NTV private television.

Screen spy James Bond is returning next year with a new movie called "Skyfall" and a star-studded cast, producers said Thursday.

Daniel Craig returns as the suave secret agent for a third time in the film, to be directed by Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes ("American Beauty").

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a planned meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff after his mother died, Anatolia news agency reported.

Rousseff, who had been scheduled to have a working dinner with Erdogan on Saturday, went to his home in Istanbul on Friday evening to present her condolences, Anatolia reported.

Russia expects a delegation of Syrian opposition politicians to visit Tuesday, a senior foreign ministry official said on Saturday.

"We are ready to meet them at the foreign ministry. This could happen on October 11 if they manage to arrive in time," deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the ITAR-TASS news agency.