Jordan has named career diplomat Walid Obeidat as a new ambassador to Israel, filling a position that has been vacant since 2010, a senior official said on Friday.

"The council of ministers has decided to appoint Walid Obeidat as an ambassador to Israel," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A resolution seeking enhanced U.N. observer status for the Palestinians will be submitted later this year after the U.S. presidential election, a Palestinian official said on Friday.

"We have begun consultations on the format of the text that will be presented to the General Assembly to upgrade the Palestinian status to an observer state status," Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, told reporters.

Several Christian families have fled their homes in Egypt's Sinai peninsula after receiving death threats from suspected Islamist militants, officials and residents told AFP on Friday.

Last week, fliers began circulating in the town of Rafah on the Gaza Strip border demanding that its tiny Coptic population move out, residents said.

Israel's threats of military action against Iran over its nuclear programme only serve to boost the defiance of the Islamic republic, the head of the Revolutionary Guards said on Friday.

"The enemies want to stop us continuing our path... but these threats only reinforce our determination to continue in the same direction," General Mohammed Ali Jafari said in a speech to thousands of members of the country's Basij militia, according to the Guards' Sepahnews website.

Jordan has named carrier diplomat Walid Obeidat as a new ambassador to Israel, filling a position that has been vacant since 2010, a senior official said on Friday.

"The council of ministers has decided to appoint Walid Obeidat as an ambassador to Israel," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Israel's media on Friday splashed their front pages with pictures of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu literally drawing a red line for Iran on a bomb diagram at the United Nations General Assembly.

But while some commentators took jabs at the cartoonish visual aid, they said Netanyahu had scored a major PR coup, winning global headlines while setting a deadline that could help ease tense relations with the White House.

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday voted overwhelmingly to extend the mandate of its probe into rights violations in Syria, condemning the "increasing number of massacres" in the country.

Of the council's 47 members, 41 voted in favor of the resolution allowing the Commission of Inquiry to continue its investigation, which began a year ago.

Dozens of prisoners were on the loose on Friday after militants attacked a prison in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, leaving at least 13 policemen dead, officials said.

The violence at the prison comes after al-Qaida's Iraqi front group announced a campaign to regain territory and said it aimed to help its jailed members escape.

Rebels unleashed an unprecedented barrage of mortar fire against troops in Aleppo after announcing a "decisive" battle for Syria's second city, residents and a watchdog say.

Shells crashed down at a steady rate and clashes were widespread, leaving layers of dust and smoke over Aleppo, according to the residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew the world a stark red line Thursday, warning that Iran could have a nuclear bomb in less than a year and demanding international action.

Wielding a red marker pen and a cartoonish diagram of a round bomb with a fizzing fuse, Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly that the international community must put a limit on Tehran's uranium enrichment.