Israel's Iron Dome short-range missile defense system shot down a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the first time such an interceptor has been deployed anywhere.

The military confirmed the rocket had been brought down over the southern city of Ashkelon by the unique multi-million-dollar system, which came into operation on March 27, the first time that Iron Dome had hit a rocket in actual combat.

Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, the only form of public vote in the conservative kingdom, are to be held on September 22, the electoral commission said on its website.

Local dailies had mistakenly reported last month that the elections would start on April 23. But a timetable posted on the website Intekhab clarified that the registration of eligible voters, not voting, would start on that date.

President Bashar Assad on Thursday granted citizenship to Syria's Kurds, the majority in the northeast who have been denied nationality for nearly half a century, said SANA state news agency.

"President Assad issued a decree granting Arab Syrian citizenship to people registered as foreigners in the (governorate of Hassake)," said the news agency.

Israeli troops stormed Awarta village in the northern West Bank on Thursday, arresting more than 100 women as they hunted the killers of an Israeli family, officials said.

The military also used bulldozers to destroy Palestinian houses in a northern farming village east of Tubas, in an area under Israeli control, according to Palestinian security officials.

The international contact group on Libya will meet on April 13 in the Qatari capital Doha, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Thursday.

France is trying "to convince the African Union to be present in Qatar next week because that's where the contact group is to meet on April 13," Juppe told lawmakers.

Gulf States leading mediation efforts to end a political crisis in Yemen hope to reach a deal by which embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh would quit, Qatar's prime minister said on Thursday.

Members of the Gulf Cooperation Council "hope to reach a deal with the Yemeni president to step down," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said according to QNA state news agency.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was set to meet Iraqi leaders Thursday after talks in Saudi Arabia where he sharply criticized Iran for exploiting unrest in the Gulf region and elsewhere.

Gates, who arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit Wednesday, will hold talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, according to officials traveling with him, and visit American troops who ended combat operations in August ahead of a scheduled withdrawal by the end of this year.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held talks in Riyadh on Wednesday with Saudi King Abdullah, with both sides concerned by Iranian intentions in the region and spiraling unrest in Yemen.

"We talked about developments all over the region, obviously talked about Iran," Gates said following the meeting.

NATO, accused of mission failure by Libyan rebels, admitted Wednesday it has to be "particularly careful" with its air strikes as government troops are using civilians as human shields, but vowed to do everything to protect civilians in Misrata.

France pledged to open a sea corridor to the besieged Mediterranean port and rebels played down losing considerable ground to government forces as just the usual stakes in desert warfare.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out an airstrike a day earlier on a car on Sudan's Red Sea coast that killed two people.

Karti's charge came as a number of Israeli newspapers spoke of the same thing, but the Israeli military and foreign ministry both declined to comment.