Members of the European Parliament called Thursday for the immediate departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who, by choosing repression instead of reforms, they said had lost all legitimacy.

In a resolution adopted in Strasbourg, the parliament called on Assad and his regime to "relinquish power immediately."

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon called Thursday for "coherent" new international action over the deadly crackdown on opposition protests by Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

"When he has not been keeping his promises, enough is enough and the international community should really take coherent measures and speak in one voice," the U.N. secretary general told a press conference.

Egypt's Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said on Thursday that the 1979 peace treaty with Israel "is not sacred," state-run MENA news agency reported, quoting remarks he made in an interview with Turkish television.

"The Camp David treaty is always open to discussion or for modification if that is beneficial for the region and for a just peace. The peace treaty is not something sacred and there can be changes made to it," MENA quoted Sharaf as saying.

Fighters loyal to Libya's new rulers were inside Sirte, the country's military said on Thursday, after a massive convoy of its forces launched a bid to take Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown.

"Misrata's thwar (fighters) arrived at the al-Gharbiyat Bridge inside Sirte," the Misrata Military Council said in a statement.

As Syria on Thursday marked six months since anti-regime protests erupted, protesters vowed to hit the streets again, undaunted by a brutal crackdown in which more than 2,600 people have died.

Looking to Friday, the Muslim day of weekly prayer when demonstrations tend to be the heaviest, people were called to turn out under the slogan "we advance toward the fall of the regime."

A Cairo court sentenced an Egyptian steel tycoon associated with the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak and a fugitive former minister to jail on Thursday in corruption trials.

Ahmed Ezz, a senior member of Mubarak's National Democratic Party and the country's top steel magnate was sentenced to 10 years and fined 660 million Egyptian pounds ($110 million dollars).

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, flanked by British Prime Minister David Cameron, dedicated Thursday the two leaders’ landmark visit to post-Gadhafi Libya to all those who want a “free Syria.”

The French president said toppled Libyan despot Moammar Gadhafi remained a "danger" and that there was a "job to finish" in eliminating the remaining strongholds of his forces.

Members of the Syrian opposition meeting in Istanbul on Thursday announced a list of 140 dissidents forming a "national council" they established in August.

The council aims to coordinate the opposition's policies against the Syrian leadership.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Thursday in Tunisia that his navy would patrol the Mediterranean and keep Israel in check.

"Israel will no longer be able to do what it wants in the Mediterranean and you'll be seeing Turkish warships in this sea," Erdogan said after a meeting with his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Thursday that the Palestinians will submit their U.N. bid on September 23 but are willing to listen to other ideas in the meantime.

Envoys from the United States, the European Union and the diplomatic Quartet have been holding 11th-hour talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in an effort to get them back into direct peace talks that stalled a year ago.