European nations were to seek a vote on Tuesday on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria's crackdown on protests.

Britain, France, Germany and Portugal dropped the word "sanctions" from their draft text in a bid to win over council opponents but diplomats said it was unclear whether it would be enough to avoid a Russian veto.

Israeli police were on high alert in the north of the country on Tuesday after an attack targeting a mosque in a Bedouin village, where locals staged angry protests overnight, police said.

"Large numbers of police remain deployed in the village of Tuba Zangaria," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse.

Syrian embassy officials have been systematically harassing emigre dissidents in a bid to silence their protests against the government's crackdown, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The London-based watchdog said it had documented cases involving more than 30 activists in eight countries -- Britain, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the United States.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday moved to block the sale of telecommunications equipment to Syria, the latest in a series of sanctions aimed at isolating Bashar al-Assad's regime.

According to a Treasury document signed on Monday, U.S. firms will now be barred from selling the Syrian government, or anyone in the country, telecoms equipment or technology, "including satellite or terrestrial network connectivity."

It is "a matter of time" before the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad is ousted from power by a popular uprising, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday.

Speaking in Tel Aviv after meeting his Israeli counterpart, Panetta said Washington and other foreign capitals had "made clear Assad should step down."

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday urged Israel and the Palestinians to take "bold action" to end the Middle East conflict while also scolding U.S. lawmakers for blocking aid to the Palestinians.

"There is a need and an opportunity for bold action on both sides to move towards a negotiated two-state solution," Panetta told a joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Moammar Gadhafi's birthplace Qasr Abu Hadi has been overrun by fighters loyal to Libya's new rulers, according to medics who visited the village Monday on the edge of the Mediterranean city of Sirte.

"Abu Hadi is completely free (of Gadhafi fighters)," said Dr. Taha Sultan at a field hospital on the eastern outskirts of Sirte.

Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza staged demonstrations on Monday in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails.

The rallies were called five days after the inmates went on hunger strike to protest against the solitary confinement of some of their fellow prisoners, including a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Libya's post-Gadhafi leaders have named a new Cabinet and vow to step down after the country is fully secured.

Monday's announcement comes after weeks of political infighting stalled efforts to form a new government.

Syrian troops going house to house have detained more than 3,000 people in the past three days in a rebellious town that government forces recently retook in some of the worst fighting since the country's uprising began six months ago, an activist said Monday.

Also, a member of Syria's outgoing parliament dismissed a broad-based national council set up by the opposition, saying it will not be able to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime. Khaled Abboud told The Associated Press that those who announced the formation of the council in Istanbul a day earlier are "deluding themselves."