Three prominent U.S. senators called late Sunday for direct U.S. military aid to Syrian rebels, including use of air power to protect rebel-controlled areas in the country.

The senators -- John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham - said in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post they were aware of the risks associated with deepening U.S. involvement in the conflict in Syria.

Gunmen in two armored vehicles crossed into Israel from Egypt near the Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday after hijacking the vehicles from an Egyptian outpost where they had killed at least 13 troops, the Israeli military said.

One vehicle exploded by itself while the other was destroyed from the air, the Israeli military added.

Three Syrian intelligence officers have defected from the Damascus regime and sought refuge in neighboring Jordan, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army said on Sunday.

"Colonel Yaarab al-Sharaa, his brother Mohammed Kanaan al-Sharaa and Colonel Yasser Ali Hajj, who worked in political intelligence in Damascus, have defected and are in Jordan," Kassem Saadeddine told Agence France Presse.

Turkey's interior minister said Sunday some 115 Kurdish rebels have been killed in a large-scale military offensive launched in the southeast of the country in July.

"We reached the conclusion that 115 members of the separatist terrorist organization have been rendered ineffective" since an offensive launched on July 23 to 24, Idris Naim Sahin was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency, referring to members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

A British photographer who was held hostage in Syria for a week said on Sunday that his captors were international jihadists who included several Britons.

Freelance photographer John Cantile and his Dutch colleague Jeroen Oerlemans were kidnapped in northern Syria on July 19 and freed a week later.

Attacks mainly targeting Iraqi security forces killed four people, among them three policemen, and wounded nine on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

So far this month attacks have killed 54 people, 41 of them members of the security forces, according to an Agence France Presse tally based on security and medical sources.

Germany's defense minister again ruled out military intervention in Syria Sunday, warning it should not be considered a knee-jerk response to the failure of diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed.

Thomas de Maiziere told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Kofi Annan's decision to quit as international peace envoy to Syria did not change Germany's stance on the sending of troops into the nearly 17-month conflict.

Saudi King Abdullah invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for an extraordinary summit of Muslim leaders to be held this month in the holy city of Mecca, state news agency SPA reported Sunday.

The Saudi monarch "sent a written letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inviting him to attend the extraordinary Islamic solidarity meeting which will be held in Mecca" in mid-August, SPA reported.

A key meeting of Non-Aligned Movement ministers which was to have taken place in the West Bank on Sunday was cancelled after Israel denied several of them entry, officials said.

The ministers were to have attended a two-day meeting of the movement's Palestine Committee in Ramallah at which they were poised to sign a declaration in support of a fresh Palestinian bid for upgraded U.N. membership.

A Palestinian man was killed and another wounded in an Israeli drone strike on Rafah in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, medics and witnesses said.

The men were riding a motorcycle at the time.