Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday called for "change" and "free elections" in Syria, which has been rocked by violent clashes between government forces and rebels.

"Iraq backs change in Syria," Maliki told Saudi newspaper Okaz in an as-yet unpublished interview, excerpts of which were released by his office in a statement.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called for the release of hundreds of Bahraini pro-democracy activists arrested after last year's uprising and for all charges against them to be dropped.

"Grossly unfair military and civilian trials have been a core element in Bahrain's crackdown on pro-democracy protests," HRW said. Cases "against everyone convicted on politically motivated charges" should be dropped.

Tunisia is ready to grant asylum to Syrian leader Bashar Assad as part of a negotiated settlement to the crisis, President Moncef Marzouki said in an interview to be published Wednesday.

Marzouki had last week called for judicial immunity for Assad and his family during an international conference on Syria held in Tunis.

State media on Tuesday hailed as a "victory for Syria" the adoption by referendum of a new constitution that ends the ruling Baath party's monopoly on power but which leaves extensive powers in the president's hands.

U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to crisis-hit Syria during a special meeting of government ministers in Geneva.

"There must be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to end the fighting and bombardments," the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said at the opening of an urgently-arranged debate on Syria at a Human Rights Council meeting.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged Jordan to drop criminal charges against an outspoken former lawmaker who called for a revolt in the kingdom.

The criminal charges against Ahmed Abbadi, "who has peacefully advocated making Jordan a republic violate freedom of expression and should be dropped immediately," the New York-based rights watchdog said in a statement.

Israeli officials say they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions. The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.

Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel's potential attack. The U.S. has been working with the Israelis for months to convince them that an attack would be only a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli forces engaged in a firefight overnight with gunmen who infiltrated from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, killing one, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

"Soldiers patrolling along the Israel-Egypt border identified a number of suspects who had infiltrated into Israel," the military said in a statement.

Iran has escalated its crackdown on freedom of expression ahead of this week's parliamentary election, Amnesty International said in a report published on Tuesday.

"In Iran today you put yourself at risk if you do anything that might fall outside the increasingly narrow confines of what the authorities deem socially or politically acceptable," said Ann Harrison, interim deputy director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program.

Efforts to evacuate foreign journalists from the rebel-held Baba Amr district of the flashpoint city of Homs failed on Monday, a Western diplomatic source in the Syrian capital said.

"The evacuation of journalists did not take place but three wounded Syrians were able to leave in Syrian Red Crescent ambulances," the source said.