Voter turnout in legislative elections in Syria stands at 51.26 percent, an official said on Tuesday, adding that 30 women had been elected to the 250-seat parliament.

Announcing the results of the May 7 vote that was boycotted by opposition groups, Khalaf al-Azzawi, head of the electoral commission, said of 10,118,519 Syrians eligible to vote, a little over half had cast ballots.

Iraq is still holding prisoners at a detention facility that has been at the center of torture allegations despite Baghdad having said it closed it a year ago, Human Rights Watch claimed on Tuesday.

The New York-based rights group called for Baghdad to start an independent investigation into allegations of torture and mistreatment, as well as other issues, at Camp Honor and other jails.

Palestinians and Arab-Israelis prepared on Tuesday to mark Nakba day, commemorating the exodus of hundreds of thousands of their kin after the establishment of Israel state in 1948.

Protests were scheduled to take place across the Palestinian territories, and an Agencce France Presse correspondent said clashes broke out early on Tuesday between police and stone-throwing demonstrators in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.

Violent clashes between rival clans in Tunisia have left 18 people injured, one of them seriously, the TAP agency reported on Monday.

The clashes occurred Sunday night and Monday morning in the Feriana region in the center-west of the north African country and erupted over a dispute over iron trafficking from neighboring Algeria, according to the interior ministry.

Gulf leaders agreed Monday to allow more time for further discussions over a Saudi proposal to turn the six-nation council into a union likely to start with the kingdom and unrest-hit Bahrain.

The leaders who met in Riyadh have instructed their foreign ministers to "continue studying the report of the special commission," said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Egyptian police raided the Cairo office of Iranian television channel, Al-Alam, confiscating its equipment after it was found to be operating without license, a security source said on Monday.

The raid was carried out on Sunday and the head of Al-Alam's Cairo office, Ahmed Sioufi, was charged with working without an official permit, the source said.

EU foreign ministers on Monday issued a harsh critique of Israel, saying the gathering pace of settlement-building, settler extremism and ill-treatment of Palestinians threatens a two-state solution.

"The EU expresses deep concern about developments on the ground which threaten to make a two-state solution impossible," the bloc's 27 ministers said in a statement issued during talks in Brussels.

Iranian MPs on Monday condemned a planned union between Saudi Arabia and fellow Sunni-ruled Bahrain, news agencies reported.

"Bahraini and Saudi rulers must understand that this unwise decision will only strengthen the Bahraini people's resolve against the forces of occupation," they said in a letter, referring to Saudi military support for Manama.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike have agreed a deal with Israel to end their fast in exchange for an easing of their conditions, Palestinian and Israeli officials said on Monday.

"All of the factions signed an agreement to end the strike," Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club told Agence France Presse after several hours of negotiations between prison officials and the senior detainees at Ashkelon jail.

The Syrian conflict has bred the emergence of obscure jihadists carrying out bloody attacks, either acting independently or manipulated by the regime seeking to tarnish the image of its opposition, analysts say.

"Al-Qaeda does not exist in Syria. But there are at present several splinter groups of jihadists who employ the same strategies," said Mathieu Guidere, a France-based analyst who specializes in the Arab and Muslim world.