Israel limited access to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday for fear of violence on the Muslim weekly day of prayer, which leads directly into Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, police said.

The restrictions were part of a wider lockdown, under which the army closed all entry points from the West Bank on Thursday night.

Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday barred nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu from emigrating on the grounds he still poses a threat to state security, Israeli media reported.

Vanunu, under orders to stay in Tel Aviv and not to speak to journalists, "has proved several times he cannot be trusted and does not respect the letter of the law," Supreme Court judges said in turning down his appeal.

The European Union is preparing to target a Syrian commercial bank and 29 Iranians accused of human rights violations in fresh sanctions to be announced in the coming days, EU diplomats said Thursday.

A decision to blacklist a commercial bank is expected to be formally adopted in the coming days and come into force at the end of next week, several diplomatic sources told Agence France Presse.

Deposed strongman Moammar Gadhafi called on Libyans to turn out in their millions to demonstrate against the country's new rulers, in an audio message broadcast Thursday on Syria-based Arrai television.

"I call on the Libyan people, men and women, to go out into the squares and the streets and in all the cities in their millions" to reject the National Transitional Council, he said in the poor quality broadcast.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Europe on Wednesday to back the "Palestinian Spring" by supporting his government's bid to win a place at the United Nations.

"Today we are at the heart of the Arab Spring: we say that the hour of the Palestinian Spring has struck," he said in a speech to the parliamentary assembly of the 47-nation Council of Europe.

An official source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied on Thursday media reports that a meeting was recently held between President Bashar Assad and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, labeling them as untrue, reported the state news agency SANA.

The source said that the last meeting between the two officials took place in August, adding “no messages were conveyed from or to anyone during the meeting.”

Twelve people were killed in clashes between soldiers and deserters in villages of Idlib province in northwest Syria on Thursday, a human rights group said.

"Seven soldiers and five deserters were killed in the clashes in villages west of Jabal al-Zawiya," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that dozens were wounded.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has condemned "heavy sentences" handed down by courts in Bahrain to pro-democracy Shiite protesters there, Tehran media reported on Thursday.

"The intensification of the crackdown on protesters and the heavy sentences will lead nowhere. Bahrain's government should take appropriate measures to respond to the demands and wishes of its people," Salehi said in remarks on Wednesday, Iran's state television reported on its website.

Germany has summoned the Syrian ambassador to Berlin over a tirade by Damascus's envoy to the United Nations, the foreign ministry said in a statement here Thursday.

"The Syrian ambassador in Germany was summoned yesterday to the foreign ministry," the statement said.

Israeli police arrested seven more people suspected of joining rock-throwing protests in a Bedouin village in northern Israel following an arson attack on a mosque there, a spokesman said Thursday.

"We arrested another seven people suspected of taking part in the demonstrations, which raises to 25 the total number of people being investigated over the incidents," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.