Israel is preparing for a huge expansion of the Itamar settlement in the northern West Bank, the Peace Now settler watchdog said on Monday.

The plan, which has yet to be approved, would see Itamar expanding five-fold from 137 homes to 675.

Saudi King Abdullah and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas met on Monday, SPA state news agency said, as the Palestinian Authority intensified efforts to bid for non-state membership of the U.N.

The two leaders discussed "developments in the Palestinian issue, as well as the obstacles facing peace in the region and the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories," the agency in a brief report.

The parents of U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing in Syria for three months, said Monday they have not heard from him since he disappeared as they appealed for his release.

Speaking to the media in Beirut, Mark and Debra Tice said they had not been contacted by any party holding the 31-year-old, a contributor to The Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers, among other publications.

The six Gulf states recognized a newly formed opposition bloc as the Syrian people's legitimate representative on Monday, as border violence stoked fears of a spillover of the country's 20-month conflict.

The Gulf Cooperation Council move came a year to the day after the Arab League suspended Syria's membership, and as the National Coalition met Arab foreign ministers in Cairo buoyed by the hard-won unity deal.

Syria's opposition agreed to unite after marathon talks in Doha, electing a moderate cleric as its leader with a prominent dissident and a female opposition figure named as his deputies.

Here are brief profiles of the three top figures of the newly-formed National Coalition:

NATO is ready to help member state Turkey as the 20-month conflict in Syria is increasingly spilling across the border, the alliance's chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Monday.

"Turkey can rely on NATO solidarity, we have more plans in place to defend and protect Turkey, our ally, if needed," Rasmussen told reporters in Prague, but declined to go into details.

Iran on Monday called for improved ties with neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan, particularly on the economic front, as the autonomous region's prime minister visited Tehran, media reports said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the visiting premier, Nechirvan Barzani, that strengthened relations with Kurdistan could benefit Iraq, the presidency website reported.

The trial of four former Israeli military chiefs charged over a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla has been adjourned to February 21, the relief group that organized the mission said on Monday.

Israel has angrily denounced the case as a "show trial" and none of the four defendants have appeared in the dock at the Istanbul court where the trial opened November 6.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's tomb was screened from public view on Monday in what a Palestinian official said was preparation for forensic examination of his body.

AFP journalists saw the iconic leader's mausoleum, at the entrance to presidential headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, was surrounded by blue tarpaulins.

A Saudi was beheaded by the sword on Monday after being convicted of murdering a fellow citizen in the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province, the interior ministry said.

Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Shamri was found guilty of shooting dead Mohammed bin Jaloud al-Anzi, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.