Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday warned of the danger of "ethnic conflict" in Iraq, after negotiations aimed at easing Arab-Kurd tensions in the country's north stalled this week.

"If conflict erupts, it would be unfortunate and painful, and it will be an ethnic conflict" that is "not in the interest of Kurds nor Arabs nor Turkmen," Maliki told a news conference in Baghdad.

France on Saturday warned Israel not to go through with a plan for 3,000 settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, arguing it would constitute a serious obstacle to a peace deal with the Palestinians.

An Israeli official earlier confirmed a report in the Haaretz newspaper that the authorities were planning to build the new settlements in response to a historic U.N. vote Thursday recognizing Palestine as a non-member state of the world body.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due home from New York to a hero's welcome on Sunday, after the United Nations voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member state.

The main official event will be a celebratory rally and a speech by Abbas at his Ramallah headquarters, starting at midday (10:00 GMT).

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called Saturday for an "independent Palestinian state" and urged the international community not to allow Israel to undermine peace efforts in the Middle East.

Davutoglu, speaking at the opening of the Turkish-Arab Forum in Istanbul, welcomed the upgrading of the Palestinians' status at the United Nations as a "significant step."

Syrian Internet and mobile phone links remained cut for a third straight day on Saturday, an AFP correspondent in Damascus reported, amid U.S. accusations the government is deliberately seeking to deprive the opposition of communications.

But activists and human rights monitors said that ordinary civilians were harder hit by the blackout than the opposition as they unable to use cellphones even to call for emergency assistance in the event of casualties from the persistent violence rocking the country.

A Palestinian shot by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday has died of his wounds, a Palestinian medical official said.

The official said that Mahmud Jarghun, 21, died early on Saturday morning at a hospital near the town of Rafah, of a gunshot wound to the pelvis.

Islamists rallied on Saturday in support of President Mohammed Morsi's new expanded powers and the drafting of a contested charter, in a clear show of Egypt's deepening polarization.

The demonstration in the heart of Cairo comes a day after tens of thousands of Morsi opponents converged on Tahrir Square to protest against the president's decree and the speedy adoption of the draft constitution.

The army shelled the southwestern outskirts of Damascus on Saturday as it mounted an offensive against rebel fighters holed up in the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The army shelled orchards that extend from Kfar Sousa to Daraya and are taking on rebels who control the region," said the Britain-based watchdog, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground.

President Moncef Marzouki said on Friday that the government of Islamist and rival Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali is not meeting the expectations of the people, as clashes between police and protesters in a flashpoint town intensified.

"The expectations of the people are huge and the performance of the government is not meeting those expectations," Marzouki said in a televised speech, stressing that Tunisia was at a crossroads between "the road to ruin and the road to recovery."

Polls closed in Kuwait's second general election in 10 months, with the opposition claiming its boycott campaign had succeeded and that voter turnout was very low.

Polls closed at 8:00 pm (17:00 GMT). Vote counting began immediately and results are expected before midnight.