Rami Hamdallah, the Nablus academic who has been tasked by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas with forming a new Ramallah-based government, is seen by Israel as a moderate pragmatist, commentators said on Monday.

Israel gave no official response to the announcement late Sunday that Hamdallah would take over as premier after Salam Fayyad stood down, but Israeli pundits described him as a figure who would be acceptable to the West and would not pose any internal threat to Abbas.

Baghdad has warned Israel that it would respond to any attempts by the Jewish state to use Iraqi airspace for a strike against Iran's controversial nuclear program, a top Iraqi minister told Agence France Presse.

The remarks from Hussein al-Shahristani, deputy prime minister responsible for energy affairs, mark the first time a senior Iraqi official has publicly warned Israel against entering its airspace -- the most direct route -- to hit targets in Iran.

Libya said on Sunday it will appeal to the International Criminal Court to reverse its decision to prosecute Seif al-Islam, a son of slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

"We will obviously appeal" as required within five days of the announcement of the decision taken on Friday, Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan.

The United States on Sunday welcomed the selection of university chief Rami Hamdallah as next Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

"We congratulate Dr. Rami Hamdallah, the next Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority," Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. "His appointment comes at a moment of challenge, which is also an important moment of opportunity."

Yemen's Human Rights Minister Huriya Mashhoor said she began a hunger strike on Sunday to press authorities to release dozens of activists held since the 2011 uprising against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"I am on hunger strike and I will not stop until the imprisoned revolt youths are released," Mashhoor told Agence France Presse. "Their only fault was that they participated in the peaceful revolt."

Iran has dismantled a "terror network" backed by Israel's Mossad intelligence services which planned to disrupt the upcoming presidential election in the Islamic republic, the state broadcaster said on Sunday.

"The intelligence ministry has identified and arrested the members of this terror network, and confiscated their weapons," IRIB said on its website, quoting a statement by the ministry.

Russia has blocked a draft United Nations Security Council declaration on the situation in the besieged Syrian town of Qusayr, diplomats said Sunday.

The text, proposed by Britain on Saturday, expressed the council's "grave concern" about the fate of civilians trapped in the strategically important town in central Homs province, where regime forces backed by Hizbullah began an assault two weeks ago.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday called on Rami Hamdallah to form a new government, and the university chief said he accepted the task as the term of Salam Fayyad formally ended.

"President Abbas has asked me to form a new government and I have accepted," Hamdallah, the president of Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, told Agence France Presse.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to visit Amman "within days," Jordan's top diplomat said on Sunday after talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas focused on U.S. peace efforts.

Speaking at a joint press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said his talks with Abbas had focused on Kerry's intensive efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after a hiatus of nearly three years.

War-torn Syria on Sunday advised its citizens to avoid travel to neighboring Turkey, where massive protests have rocked several cities, because of "a deterioration in the security situation."

The warning issued by the foreign ministry comes as a civil war that has killed tens of thousands ravages Syria, pitting rebels backed by Turkey and other countries against the regime of President Bashar Assad.