Tens of thousands of supporters of the Kuwaiti opposition marched in the capital Friday on the eve of election to urge voters to boycott the polls in protest against a change to the electoral law.

Chanting slogans "we are boycotting" and "the people want the repeal of the amendment", the demonstrators marched peacefully after authorities issued a permit unlike the previous protests which turned violent.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Germany next week for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel notably about the situation in the Middle East, Berlin said on Friday.

The visit to Berlin by Netanyahu on Wednesday and Thursday is part of a further round of German-Israeli government consultations, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

Former premier and intelligence chief Ahmad Obeidat joined thousands of Jordanians on Friday to protest fuel price hikes, demanding regime reform and the resignation of Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur.

"The people want to reform the regime. We demand reform and change. Nsur, out before the people revolt," chanted the protesters led by Obeidat's National Reform Front which includes opposition Islamists.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay has urged Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to reconsider a decree handing himself sweeping powers, cautioning it clashed with international rights conventions, her office said Friday.

Pillay had sent a letter to Morsi, stressing that a number of measures laid out in his declaration last week "are incompatible with international human rights law," her spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva.

The conflict in Syria has displaced some 250,000 people in the western city of Homs alone, the U.N.'s refugee agency said Friday, demanding safe passage for civilians trying to flee the violence.

"This city (Homs) is really in a desperate situation," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva, saying that "being displaced inside Syria is a very scary and a vulnerable situation to be in."

Egyptian activists were to rally Friday after a Islamist-dominated panel rushed through a draft constitution, escalating the political stand-off between President Mohammed Morsi and his opposition.

A spokesman for former Arab League chief Amr Moussa said the opposition leader would later Friday head a march to Tahrir Square, where activists are staging a sit-in protest against a decree by Morsi granting himself broad powers that shield his decisions from judicial review.

Jordan must stop using a military tribunal to prosecute peaceful demonstrators after several were arrested this month for protesting at rising fuel prices, the Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

"Instead of respecting the right to peaceful protest, the Jordanian authorities are using what remains essentially a military court to punish civilians, including peaceful protesters," Joe Stork, HRW deputy Middle East director, said in a statement.

Phone and Internet networks were down across most of Syria for a second straight day on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

"In some areas, it is possible to access the Internet but with great difficulty," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

Fighting between rebels and troops raged around Damascus airport through the night but the main road to the capital had reopened and the airport was functioning normally on Friday, various sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the main road to Damascus from the airport, which was closed Thursday due to the fighting, had reopened but said a bus carrying airport employees had been hit by a shell, killing two people.

The U.S. and Israel on Thursday hailed the performance of the Iron Dome defense system during the recent Gaza conflict, with Washington stressing its continued "strong commitment" to the program.

The much vaunted Israeli anti-missile system played a prominent role in the eight-day confrontation between the Jewish state and Gaza-based militants that ended with a November 21 ceasefire deal.