A Syrian opposition meeting scheduled for Saturday in Istanbul to elect a prime minister for a government of rebel-held zones has been postponed and no new date set, the opposition coalition said.

"The conference has been postponed and no new date has been set. I cannot reveal the reasons at this time and I do not exclude its cancellation," National Coalition member Samir Nashar told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Israel's health ministry said on Thursday the cause of a Palestinian prisoner's death remains unclear following tests on samples from his body, after Palestinian charges he was tortured in detention.

Two other Palestinian inmates, meanwhile, have suspended their hunger strike, an Israeli prisons official said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing alliance was to reopen talks on Thursday with a possible coalition partner, two days before an initial deadline to form a new government, officials said.

Likud spokeswoman Noga Katz told Agence France Presse that alliance negotiators would meet representatives of the centrist Yesh Atid party for what media said would be their first talks in two weeks.

Croatia said Thursday it will withdraw its soldiers stationed on the Golan Heights as part of a U.N. force after reports said that Syrian rebels battling the regime of Bashar Assad were receiving weapons from the Balkan country.

"After talks with President (Ivo) Josipovic I have initiated the withdrawal of Croatian troops from the Golan Heights," Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic told a cabinet session.

U.S., European and Arab officials gathered for the "Friends of Syria" meeting in Rome promised on Thursday to provide more concrete assistance to the opposition battling President Bashar Assad's regime.

"The ministers pledged more political and material support to the (National) Coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and to get more concrete assistance inside Syria," host country Italy said in a statement after the talks between 11 nations and the Syrian opposition.

Rebels seized control of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Syria's second city of Aleppo on Thursday after several days of fierce clashes that damaged the building, a watchdog reported.

State news agency SANA, meanwhile, said a car bomb exploded in a regime-held suburb of the central city of Homs, killing one person and wounding 24 others.

Two Palestinians held in Israeli custody without trial have ended their hunger strike but are still being treated in civilian hospitals, an Israeli prison official said on Thursday.

Jaafar Ezzeddine and Tariq Qaadan had "started eating yesterday," Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told Agence France Presse.

The United States said on Thursday it would for the first time provide direct aid to Syrian rebels, but not the arms they had hoped for, as well as $60 million in extra assistance to the political opposition.

After talks with European and Arab partners and the opposition National Coalition in Rome, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would provide aid to fighters in the form of food and medical assistance.

Twelve civilians, including four members of one family, from the same Damascus district were killed under torture in prison after their arrest, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Thursday.

Families received the identity cards of the victims from the security forces on Wednesday night, according to the Britain-based watchdog.

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday on a visit to Moscow that he believed it would be possible to come to a political decision on the Syrian conflict in the coming weeks.

"I think that in the next few weeks we will manage to find a political solution that will stop the conflict from escalating," Hollande told Echo of Moscow radio station in comments translated into Russian.