Iran's parliament on Monday approved legislation to severely increase punishment for Iranian citizens “who dare” to travel to the lands of arch-foe Israel.

Under the new law, any Iranian who visits Israel will face a jail term of two to five years, while they will also be banned from holding a passport for three to five years, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Egyptian security officials have arrested two more members of an Islamist group thought to be behind attacks on a pipeline supplying gas to Israel and Jordan, the official MENA agency reported Monday.

Abdel Karim Mohammed Ahmed and Ahmed Salem Awad of the radical Islamist al-Takfeer wal Hijra were detained during a sweep in the north Sinai town of el-Arish, a day after one of the group's leading members was held, said MENA.

Syrian strongman Bashar Assad's exiled uncle, a former regime insider accused of carrying out a massacre in 1982, says he wants to oversee a peaceful transition of power in his homeland.

On Sunday, Rifaat Assad took charge of a new opposition movement in exile. Afterwards, in an interview with AFP and Le Monde, he urged Arab and world powers to negotiate his nephew's safe departure from power.

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said Monday that the government in Damascus will not budge despite its suspension from the Arab League, which he warned was a "dangerous step."

"The decision of the Arab League to suspend Syria... represents a dangerous step," Muallem told a packed news conference in Damascus.

Syria's opposition has asked Turkey for permission to open a representative office in the country, a Turkish diplomat said Monday.

The Syrian National Council, the country's largest and most representative opposition grouping, put the request to Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during talks on Sunday, the diplomat said.

Kuwait has denied that two of its citizens arrested in Iran were spying, saying they were working for a private television channel and had obtained visas to enter the Islamic republic.

"An official source at the foreign ministry categorically denied the accusation," made against the two citizens, said a statement posted on the state-run KUNA news agency late on Sunday.

Three French hostages kidnapped by al-Qaida militants in Yemen more than five months ago are on their way home, a tribal official involved in their release said on Monday.

"They travelled by land to the Sultanate of Oman and will be flying to France from there," the chief who led the mediation efforts with al-Qaida militants told Agence France Presse.

Israeli air raids on the northern Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian overnight and wounded four others, doctors said Monday, after a rocket attack on Israeli territory.

The raids destroyed a security post of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and left two other Palestinians missing, they said.

Iran has rejected claims by Manama that it has links to a "terrorist" cell busted in Bahrain, state television's website reported on Monday.

Amir Abdolahian, a deputy foreign minister in charge of Arab and African affairs, was quoted as saying that the "baseless allegation" had been "fabricated by the United States."

The Arab League is to hold a fresh meeting on Syria on Wednesday, an official said, amid signs of cracks in the resolve of the 22-member bloc to suspend Damascus over its lethal crackdown on protests.

The agenda for Wednesday's meeting includes an assessment of the degree to which Syria had applied its November 2 agreement with the Arab League to end its crackdown on protests.