Libyan rebel chief Mahmoud Jibril denied Friday suggestions by a Russian envoy that the insurgents had been negotiating with Moammer Gadhafi's regime.

"I can assure you there is and there was no negotiation between the NTC and the regime," the head of the rebel National Transitional Council told a press conference in Naples.

Syria's ambassador to France has lodged an official complaint against the news channel France 24 accusing it of misinformation, the state-run SANA news agency reported Friday.

Lamia Shakkur filed the complaint to the Paris public prosecutor on Wednesday "for broadcasting false information," the Syrian embassy in France said in a statement carried by SANA.

Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, being treated for shrapnel wounds in Riyadh, will not return home, a top Saudi official told Agence France Presse on Friday, contrary to Sanaa's claims that he will return soon.

"The Yemeni president will not return to Yemen," the official said, requesting anonymity.

Two loud blasts shook Libya's capital Tripoli on Friday afternoon following a series of more distant explosions heard earlier in the day, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Tripoli has been targeted anew by NATO warplanes, which since Thursday have been constantly overflying the Libyan capital.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday bluntly told the European Union's top diplomat that U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state in September would render the Oslo Accords null and void.

At a breakfast meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Lieberman said the 1993 Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority, and all the agreements reached since then, would be cancelled if they secured recognition of their independent state when the United Nations meets this autumn.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime "to stop killing people," as pressure mounted on Damascus over its widening crackdown in the north.

Ban, who was in Brazil as part of a Latin America tour in support of his bid for re-election as secretary-general, told reporters Assad should "engage in an inclusive dialogue" and "take bold... measures before it is too late."

An overnight explosion in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya which left four dead, was caused by a gas leak and was not related to any criminal or nationalist issues, police said on Friday.

The blast occurred late on Thursday in centre of the seaside town, flattening a four-storey building and injuring around 65 people, many of whom were sitting in a restaurant on the ground floor.

Telecoms tycoon Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad who is on a list of 13 Syrians facing EU sanctions, said Thursday he will allocate profits from his businesses to charity.

"Profits from the shares I own in Syriatel will be allocated to charity, humanitarian work and development projects" for people across Syria, Makhlouf said in a statement obtained by Agence France Presse.

The United States is stepping up contacts inside and outside Syria with Syrians who are seeking political change, a State Department spokeswoman said Thursday.

The move appeared to mark a toughening in the administration's stance toward Damascus as it escalates an internal crackdown on dissent with military sweeps on towns near the Turkish border.

The European Union on Thursday began work to toughen sanctions against Syria, looking at adding firms and a dozen people to a blacklist which already includes President Bashar al-Assad and key allies.

Several diplomatic sources said experts from the 27-nation bloc were discussing ways Thursday of "widening sanctions" against Damascus.