Top U.S. diplomat John Kerry spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas about settlements and the Mideast peace process, the State Department said Friday.

The calls -- Thursday with Netanyahu and Friday with Abbas -- come on the heels of a State Department warning directed at Israel that continued settlement activity in east Jerusalem was "counterproductive" to efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The family of a U.S. woman believed to have been killed in Syria was anxiously awaiting news of her fate Friday, after reports that she was shot dead by regime forces near the border with Turkey.

"Keep us in your prayers," Carole Mansfield told Agence France Presse as she awaited confirmation from U.S. officials that her granddaughter, Nicole Lynn Mansfield, was among three Westerners reportedly killed on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah traveled to Morocco on Friday for an "official visit", state news agency SPA reported, refuting rumors that the octogenarian monarch's health was deteriorating.

The king, who was born in 1924, has spent time in Morocco recovering after operations in recent years.

The remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis in fighting following the 1948 foundation of the Israeli state have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv's Jaffa district.

An official at the Muslim cemetery there told Agence France Presse that the grisly find occurred on Wednesday when ground subsided as workers carried out renovations, revealing six chambers full of skeletons.

Thousands of people who have fled the besieged Syrian town of Qusayr are in dire need of aid, the U.N.'s refugee agency said Friday, as its tally for Syrians who have escaped their war-torn nation topped 1.6 million.

UNHCR spokesman Dan McNorton told reporters that at least 3,500 people -- mostly women and children -- had made it to the nearby town of Hasiya.

A British national has been killed in Syria, the Foreign Office confirmed on Friday, after a monitoring group said that Syrian soldiers killed three westerners.

"We understand that a British national has been killed in Syria. Their family have been informed and we are providing consular assistance," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

A group of doctors working in war-torn Syria said Friday its members had seen dozens of patients suffering from what they believe are chemical weapons attacks, saying the number seemed to be rising.

"We have dozens of cases of people hurt in what seems to be chemical attacks, especially civilians," Tawfik Chamaa, a founding member of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations (UOSSM), told Agence France Presse.

Four Mexican tourists were killed on Friday in a fiery road accident in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, South Sinai's governor told Agence France Presse, with police and medics putting the toll at six.

Seventeen tourists, all Mexican, were injured in the crash, governor Khaled Fouda told AFP, adding that two were in critical condition.

The International Criminal Court on Friday rejected Tripoli's bid to halt its prosecution of slain leader Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam for crimes against humanity committed while trying to put down Libya's bloody revolt in 2011.

"The chamber concluded that it has not been sufficiently demonstrated that (Libya's) domestic investigation (covers) the same case that is before the court," the Hague-based ICC said in a statement on the long-awaited decision.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Russia's planned delivery of S-300 air defense missiles to Syria is "not helpful" for efforts to convene a peace conference.

Kerry's comments at a news conference with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle came ahead of a preparatory meeting in Geneva next week on a U.S.-Russian bid for talks to end Syria's two-year-old civil war.