Three Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are refusing food, despite the signing this week of a deal to end a mass prisoner hunger strike, Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Thursday.

An official from the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, which tracks the well-being of the 4,700 Palestinians in Israeli jails, told Agence France Presse that "prisoners Mahmoud Sarsak, Akram Rikhawi and Mohammed Abdel Aziz are still on hunger strike."

Prominent Palestinian writer Salameh Kaileh said on Thursday the Syrian authorities deported him this week to Jordan after three weeks of detention and torture over his anti-regime writings.

"Syrian intelligence raided my house and arrested me on April 23. I was suddenly deported to Jordan on Monday after a three-week detention and torture," Kaileh told Agence France Presse in Amman.

The head of Syria's main opposition bloc, Burhan Ghalioun, announced on Thursday that he is resigning, pending the naming of his successor, just two days after his controversial re-election.

"I will not allow myself to be the candidate of division, I am not attached to a position, so I announce that I will step down after a new candidate has been chosen, either by consensus or through new elections," the Paris-based academic said in a statement.

Two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are refusing food, despite the signing this week of a deal to end a mass prisoner hunger strike, Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Thursday.

An official from the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, which tracks the well-being of the 4,700 Palestinians in Israeli jails, told Agence France Presse that "prisoners Mahmud Sarsak and Akram Rikhawi are still on hunger strike."

The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists on the ground in Syria, threatened Thursday to pull out of opposition bloc the Syrian National Council over its "monopolization" of power.

The threat came after Paris-based academic Burhan Ghalioun was reelected head of the exiled coalition in the face of opposition by some members of the secretariat and rules that require the president's rotation every three months.

Two Iranians kidnapped in Syria in December and freed with the help of Turkish mediation arrived in Tehran on Thursday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Majid Qanbar Beedroomi and Ahad Sohrabi Kordabadi were among seven Iranian engineers abducted near central Homs city, where they worked at an electricity plant for Iran's Power Plant Projects Management Company, according to Iranian officials.

There is still no agreement among leaders of the world's richest nations on the final text of a declaration that will touch upon the protracted conflict in Syria, a Kremlin advisor said Thursday.

The leaders of the G8 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States -- will meet Friday and Saturday for a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat near Washington.

Former commander of Israel’s Air Forces warned on Thursday that his country’s air superiority is increasingly undermined by the proliferation of sophisticated surface-to-air missile systems throughout the region – in Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula.

“The Israeli Air Force needs to be ready to fly in places where there is a threat to its superiority,” outgoing Air Force Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan told The Jerusalem Post.

Bahrain on Thursday warned Iran to stop interfering in its internal affairs while affirming its support for a union between the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa made the remarks a day after Iran called on its people to protest on Friday against the union that Gulf officials say will start with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

An Israeli tank shell fired into the Gaza Strip on Thursday wounded seven Palestinians, leaving two of them in critical condition, Palestinian medical officials told AFP.

The shell hit near the Karni crossing east of Gaza City, according to the medics.