The U.N. Security Council is preparing a resolution that could order sanctions against figures seeking to undermine Yemen's state-building drive, diplomats said Tuesday.

Work on the resolution is still at an early stage but some countries want former president Ali Abdullah Saleh named in the document, diplomats said.

Tunisia's new technocratic government headed by Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa was sworn in Wednesday, replacing an Islamist-led administration under an accord to end political turmoil and prepare for fresh elections.

The formal transfer of power took place at the presidential palace after a marathon overnight parliamentary session in which 149 of the country's 193 lawmakers finally approved Jomaa's line-up.

An al-Qaida inspired group said it carried out the assassination on Tuesday of a top Egyptian police general and threatened similar attacks against the army chief and interior minister.

General Mohamed Saeed, an aide to interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim, was gunned down as he left his home in a west Cairo neighborhood on Tuesday morning.

Iran said Tuesday that Israel is using Tehran's nuclear program to distract from its "crimes" against the Palestinians, during a rare visit by an official from the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Israel, along with Western countries, has long accused Iran of covertly pursuing nuclear weapons alongside its civilian program -- charges denied by Tehran -- and the Jewish state criticized a landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers in November.

The Moroccan foreign ministry summoned Algeria's ambassador Tuesday to protest its alleged expulsion of Syrian refugees across their common border, in the latest spat between the feuding neighbors.

Algeria has already rejected the accusations, saying on Monday that its border guards had merely refused to allow Syrian nationals deported by Morocco onto its territory.

A Jerusalem court sentenced an ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Israeli Jew to four-and-a-half years prison Tuesday for attempting to spy for arch-foe Iran, a court document read.

Yitzhak Bergel, a member of the radical Neturei Karta group that opposes the existence of the state of Israel, admitted as part of a plea bargain to having contacted the Iranian embassy in Berlin in 2011 to offer intelligence, and staying in contact with Iranian diplomats after returning to Israel.

Fresh clashes erupted Tuesday in the southern Libyan city of Sebha pitting supporters of slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi against government forces and former rebels, a military source said.

The latest fighting was sparked by the arrival of government reinforcements who aim to dislodge the Gadhafi supporters from several positions they occupy in and around the desert city, said Al-Ferjani Akila, of the Sebha Operations Center.

Gunmen shot dead a policemen guarding a church in Cairo on Tuesday, and wounded two others, security sources said, hours after another attack claimed the life of a police general.

The shootings come a day after Egypt's military backed its chief Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, to run for the presidency.

Three years after a popular uprising forced out ex-general Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's army is again pushing a commander to stand for president after he ousted the first civilian head of state.

On Monday, the army endorsed its Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's candidacy for an election he is expected to win amid a strong nationalist fervor since he overthrew president Mohammed Morsi.

Human Rights Watch urged Jordan again Tuesday to reform laws that restrict freedom of expression, saying it is shameful that people can be jailed for chanting slogans or criticizing officials.

In its World Report for 2014, U.S.-based HRW called on parliament to "undertake critical reforms... to remove or amend laws that place impermissible limits on free expression."