Five sick Libyan babies and children arrived in Malta overnight Thursday for treatment at the country's public hospital, a government statement said.

The children, aged between four months and five years, arrived on a flight from rebel-held Benghazi accompanied by relatives. They were welcomed by Health Minister Joe Cassar.

Suspected al-Qaida militants killed 10 soldiers in an ambush on a road in southern Yemen, where the jihadist network has a stronghold, a military official said on Thursday.

The gunmen opened fire on the vehicle in which the soldiers were travelling on Wednesday, north of the city of Loder, in Abyan province, killing them all, the official told Agence France Presse.

A lone French yacht carrying activists hoping to run the Israeli blockade on Gaza was on Thursday blocked in Crete by the Greek coast guard when it stopped to refuel, an organizer said.

"The Dignite/Al Karama was taken to Sitia in Crete by the Greek coast guard after being stopped in a nearby port while it was refueling," Claude Leostic told Agence France Presse by telephone from Paris.

The United States on Wednesday warned the Palestinians against seeking U.N. recognition of a future state not first defined in talks with Israel, as a top Palestinian official met with U.S. diplomats.

"We don't see a contradiction between the efforts being exerted to revive the peace process and our bid to go to the U.N.," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters after his talks at the U.S. State Department.

Iraqi authorities uncovered a mass grave with 900 corpses near the central city of Diwaniyah on Wednesday, believed to be Kurds killed during the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, an official said.

The corpses were found in the Shanafiya region, 70 kilometers west of Diwaniyah.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said it will take part in a mass rally planned for Friday to pressure the country's military rulers on reforms, after first announcing it was staying away.

"The Brotherhood has decided to participate in the demonstration on July 8 (aimed at) raising the flag of justice so that all rights can be regained, and all criminals punished and all the demands of the revolution met," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Hundreds of people torched police cars and tried to storm government buildings in the Egyptian city of Suez on Wednesday, after a court confirmed the bail of police accused of murdering protesters.

Witnesses said angry people took to the streets of the canal city, burning police cars, pelting government buildings with stones and some trying to storm security headquarters.

Libyan rebels Wednesday seized the desert hamlet of Gualish Wednesday on the first day of a NATO-backed push on the capital Tripoli and captured a number of African mercenaries, Agence France Presse reported.

Buoyed by French arms drops and NATO-led air strikes, the rebels attacked positions in the Gualish area, in the plains north of their enclave in the Nafusa mountains southwest of Tripoli.

A lone French yacht was on Wednesday headed for Gaza after sneaking out of Greek waters in defiance of a ban on the departure of aid ships aiming to run Israel's blockade on the coastal strip.

The MV Dignite/Al Karama, which left Greek waters early on Tuesday, is heading slowly towards Gaza, a spokesman for the French Boat to Gaza campaign told Agence France Presse, saying they had not yet given up hope they would be joined by others from the ill-fated Freedom Flotilla which had been due to set sail last week.

Israel's prime minister said on Wednesday ties were improving with Turkey, as officials worked to patch up relations before the release of a U.N. report on last year's fatal raid on a Gaza flotilla.

Speaking in Bucharest at the start of a trip to Romania and Bulgaria, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel and Turkey were looking to heal the breach in relations that followed the killing in May 2010 of nine Turkish activists by Israeli commandos who stormed a convoy looking to run the blockade on Gaza.