British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday toured a desert refugee camp for Syrians in northern Jordan, walking down a dusty road between the tents before visiting a U.N.-run school.

Dressed casually in black trousers, a grey shirt and a sporting a Remembrance poppy, Cameron took time to speak to some of the more than 36,000 Syrians housed in tents and caravans in the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syria border.

The United Nations on Tuesday condemned fighting by Syrian forces close to a Golan Heights ceasefire line with Israel as a new threat to stability in the region.

Israel demanded action by the U.N. Security Council after one of its patrols in the buffer zone was hit Monday by bullets fired by Syrian forces who are battling rebels in the area.

An Egyptian policeman was shot and critically wounded in Sinai on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, days after three policemen were killed in an ambush in the restive peninsula.

The officer was shot in the neck in the northern city of El-Arish, the site of the deadly attack on Saturday.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would support granting Syrian President Bashar Assad a safe passage out, if requested, to end the nation's bloodshed, in a television interview Tuesday.

Asked what he would say if Assad asked for a safe exit, Cameron told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV: "Done. Anything, anything to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria."

Egypt's new Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II has said he would reject a constitution still in the making if it imposed a religious state in the Muslim-majority country, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Tawadros, whose minority community has become increasingly fearful of the rise of Islamists to power in Egypt, also urged Christians not to leave the country stressing that they have co-existed with Muslims for centuries.

Syrian rebels under increasing attack from regime warplanes have obtained 50 Stinger shoulder-launched missiles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Amman Tuesday after talks with a top dissident.

Lavrov also stressed after his meeting in the Jordanian capital with Syria's defected former prime minister Riad Hijab that he planned to work with opposition groups to help end the conflict that has ravaged Syria for more than 19 months.

Israel is preparing to counter a Palestinian bid for enhanced United Nations status later this month, a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.

The comments came as Israel's private Channel 10 reported that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman last month pledged to ensure the "collapse" of the Palestinian Authority if the bid for non-member status at the General Assembly goes forward.

At least 131 people were killed as bombings, clashes and air strikes shook Syria on Tuesday, a rights watchdog said.

In the capital Damascus, gunmen shot and killed the brother of Syria's parliament speaker as he drove to work, the state-run news agency reported.

The opposition Syrian National Council, meeting in Qatar to broaden its membership, said Tuesday that the "cornerstone" umbrella group should preserve its leading role in any revamp.

SNC chief Abdel Basset Sayda also denounced the failure of the international community to act to end "massacres" being committed by forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Yemeni militiamen backing the government in the south have besieged the residence of a tribal chief suspected of links to al-Qaida upon his return to the region, a local chief said on Tuesday.

Gunmen from the local Popular Resistance Committees have been surrounding since late Monday the house of warlord Tarek al-Fadhli, who has fought in Afghanistan, upon his return to the southern city of Zinjibar, said Hussein al-Waheshi.