Thousands of Bedouin marched in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on Thursday to protest a government plan to settle tens of thousands of their desert-dwelling people in permanent townships, media reported.

Public radio said the protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners of the Israeli Islamic movement, chanting "With our blood and our spirit we will redeem the Negev," referring to the desert where most Israeli Bedouin live.

Rebels fired two mortar rounds at Damascus international airport on Thursday, delaying two landings and one take-off, Syrian state television cited Transport Minister Mahmoud Said as saying.

"One mortar round hit at the airport's edges, near the runway, causing two flights coming from Latakia (in northwestern Syria) and Kuwait to delay their landing. The take-off of a flight to Baghdad was also delayed," said the minister.

A Tunisian rapper was handed a two-year jail sentence on Thursday for insulting the police in a song, an Agence France Presse journalist reported, with the court ruling sparking clashes between his supporters and police.

Ala Yaacoub, better known by his rap name "Weld El 15", was being retried at the same court in a Tunis suburb that had convicted him in absentia in March, after he handed himself him in to face justice.

Syrian rebels seized on Thursday a key army position in the central province of Hama, which lies on the road linking Damascus to Aleppo in the north, a monitoring group said Thursday.

The military responded by deploying en mass to try to take back the position at Morek and began shelling it, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.

At least 93,000 people, including over 6,500 children, have been killed in Syria's civil war, the United Nations said Thursday, warning that the true death toll could be far higher.

The skyrocketing number of deaths over the past year, along with documented cases of children tortured and entire families massacred, "is a terrible reminder of just how vicious this conflict has become," U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay said.

A Yemeni soldier was killed in clashes Thursday with tribesmen who attacked an oil pipeline and halted the flow of crude, sources said.

The soldier was in a convoy escorting a technical team to the site of the attack in the Sarwah region, between Sanaa and Marib in the country's east, a security official said.

Publication of the first images of convalescing Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in a Paris hospital has failed to reassure the country's media, with many commenting Thursday on his weak health.

"Bouteflika greatly weakened by the illness," ran the headline of French-language daily El Watan.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon is in exploratory talks with Sweden over plans it could lead a beefed-up peacekeeping force between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, an Israeli official said on Thursday.

"It's in very preliminary stages," he told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Israel is seeking approval for hundreds of settler homes in the northern West Bank settlements of Itamar and Bruchin, Israel media reported on Thursday.

The Jerusalem Post said that plans to build 538 new homes in Itamar and legalize 137 existing units were submitted to regional planning authorities this week.

Nine months after the U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed in an attack, Secretary of State John Kerry has sworn in a new envoy, vowing she would play a key role as the country moves toward democracy.

Long-time diplomat Deborah Jones took the oath of office on Tuesday to replace Chris Stevens in a ceremony at the State Department.