Egypt turned back 450 travelers seeking to cross at the Rafah border point after an attack on a Sinai police station, Hamas officials said on Sunday.

The Hamas-run interior ministry said that the 450 would-be travelers, some of them patients seeking medical treatment, were turned back at the border on Saturday.

At least 145 people were killed on Sunday, among them 113 in the flashpoint protest city of Hama, when the Syrian military stormed several cities across the country, the National Organization for Human Rights said.

Activists said it was one of deadliest days in Syria since demonstrators first took to the streets on March 15 demanding democratic reforms before turning their wrath on the regime and calling for its ouster.

The Gadhafi regime said on Sunday it was in contact with members of the rebel National Transitional Council as the rebels tried to quash rumors about the mysterious death of their army chief.

In Tripoli, deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaaim said Libyan leader Moamer Gadhafi’s government was in contact with members of the rebel NTC, but denied rumors of contacts with General Abdel Fatah Yunis, who was killed on Thursday.

Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in 10 cities across the country on Saturday evening to protest against the high cost of living, Agence France Presse correspondents reported.

More than 30,000 demonstrated in downtown Tel Aviv as thousands more marched in Jerusalem, in the northern city of Haifa and in Nazareth.

The Muslim fasting month of Ramadan will begin on Monday in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates; it was officially announced in all six countries.

Saudi state television al-Ekhbariya said Ramadan will begin on Monday in the kingdom, home to Islam's holiest shrines, Mecca and Medina, because the sighting of the new moon could not be confirmed by the authorities.

Influential Yemeni tribal leaders on Saturday announced the creation of a coalition to bolster six months of popular protests to demand the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"Ali Abdullah Saleh will not rule us as long as I am alive," Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, the powerful head of the Hashid tribe, said after being appointed head of the new coalition, an AFP correspondent reported.

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who faces trial next week accused ordering troops to fire on protesters, will appear in court at the Cairo Police Academy, the appeals court said Saturday.

The trial would open on Wednesday and be held "inside the Police Academy in Masr el-Gedida" in northern Cairo for security reasons, said the court's president, Abdel Aziz Omar.

A Syrian army colonel said on Saturday that he has defected with "hundreds" of soldiers and warned the regime against launching a crackdown on the eastern oil hub of Deir al-Zour.

The man, identifying himself as Colonel Riad al-Asaad, said in a telephone call to Agence France Presse in Nicosia that he was speaking from inside Syria "near the Turkish border."

Morocco's King Mohammed VI called Saturday for speedy elections and the reopening of his country's border with Algeria in his first throne speech since a referendum voted to curb some of his prerogatives.

In the July 1 referendum, more than 98 percent of Moroccans approved a set of political reforms backed by the king following a series of youth-led, pro-democracy demonstrations in several cities.

MPs slashed the size of Iraq's national unity cabinet by a third on Saturday after a visit to parliament by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who has called for his bloated government to be slimmed down.

The deal immediately cut 14 junior minister posts.