Israel's government on Friday strenuously denied it had any link to an arms-laden ship that Egypt said its navy seized as it sailed from the Israeli port of Eilat to Togo in West Africa.

"Nobody in Israel knows anything about this ship. It's clear that it did not come from Eilat or any other Israeli port," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Agence France Presse.

Gaza's Hamas rulers on Friday urged the United Nations to reconsider its suspension of food aid for Palestinian refugees, imposed after protesters stormed a U.N. depot.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, stopped food deliveries after dozens of Gazans forced their way into the field office on Thursday, demanding reinstatement of a monthly cash allowance to poor families which was halted from April 1 due to budget cuts.

The United States urged Bahrain's Sunni-led government on Thursday to promote dialogue with the Shiite opposition after two years of political upheaval in the country.

U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Rashad Hussain met senior Bahraini government officials, political leaders, civil society activists and religious leaders in Manama earlier this week.

The newly reelected chief of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, pledged on Thursday to work to end a rift with his West Bank rival, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

Meshaal, speaking at a pro-Palestinian conference in Cairo, "affirmed his movement's solicitude for ending the division with its negative effects," the Palestinian Safa news agency quoted his as saying.

The U.N. is hiking its estimates of people trapped in Syria after fleeing their homes, saying Wednesday some four million are now displaced inside the country and in dire need of international help.

The figure, due to be officially released in the coming days, is a dramatic increase on earlier estimates of some 2.5 million displaced put forward by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for the period from January to June.

Egypt's navy on Thursday seized a weapons-laden ship and detained its crew who had set off from the Israeli port of Eilat en route to the African country of Togo, security officials said.

Officials the ship, "which was flying the flag of an African country," was intercepted after it strayed into Egyptian territorial waters.

Direct road links between Egypt and Sudan will open soon, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said on Thursday, beginning a two-day visit which Khartoum has called "historic".

Morsi's first trip to the neighboring country, which Egypt jointly ruled with Britain until 1956, comes nearly a year after his election.

A solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, where a U.N. peacekeeping force has been deployed for two decades, is more important than ever as a result of the Islamist revolt raging in northern Mali, the French president said on Thursday.

"The economic potential is enormous. But I am also aware of the obstacles, and the question of the Western Sahara, which has been waiting to be resolved for more than 30 years," President Francois Hollande told the Moroccan parliament.

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad has left hospital after being treated for pancreatic inflammation, a medical source said on Thursday.

The 61-year-old was taken to hospital in Ramallah on Monday with stomach pains, but was released late on Wednesday after undergoing treatment and returned home to rest, a medic close to Fayyad said.

Saudi authorities are to release a Jordanian reform activist held since the beginning of the year in a case that drew concern from human rights groups, the foreign ministry in Amman said Thursday.

"Saudi authorities told us that Khalid al-Natour will return to Jordan, most likely on Sunday," ministry spokesman Sabah al-Rifai told Agence France Presse.