Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit on Tuesday called for an "urgent ceasefire" in Syria's battered northern city of Aleppo to allow the flow of humanitarian aid to residents.

A suicide bomber has struck a wedding in northeast Syria as the bride and groom were exchanging vows, killing 34 people and wounding dozens, the local Kurdish government said.

At least 10 civilians were killed Monday, including six children, when an artillery shell hit a busy street near a popular market in Taez in southern Yemen, the U.N. said Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia is conducting live-fire drills during war games underway in the Gulf, official media said on Tuesday, as tensions simmer with Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insisted Tuesday that Washington was still seeking peace in Syria, but said it had dropped ceasefire talks with Russia because of "outrage' over Moscow's support for the regime.

The UN rights chief on Tuesday called for action to halt the tragedy unfolding in Syria's Aleppo, and urged the Security Council to introduce a limit on its members' veto power.

"Faced with such a ghastly avalanche of violence and destruction, extraordinary steps must be taken," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement, condemning the killing of 100 children in 10 days in rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

The Palestinian government decided Tuesday to delay municipal elections for up to four months after the high court ruled they should be held only in the West Bank and not in the Gaza Strip.

However, a new date for the vote was not set by the government based in the West Bank, the Palestinian territory run by president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.

Syrian regime forces advanced against rebels during intense street battles in the heart of Aleppo on Tuesday, after the United States abandoned talks with Russia aimed at reviving a ceasefire deal.

Washington said its decision did not mean it was "abandoning the pursuit of peace", as Moscow called for "political wisdom" while announcing the deployment of its S-300 missile system to the port of Tartus.

Egypt's Interior Ministry says police have killed a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader and another member of the outlawed Islamist group in a shootout in Cairo.

A ministry statement carried by the state MENA news agency early on Tuesday says 61-year-old Mohammed Kamal, a physician by profession, was wanted for more than a dozen armed attacks and was twice sentenced in absentia to life in prison for establishing an armed group and an explosion near a police station.

A French-Tunisian woman working for the Red Cross has been released after nearly a year in captivity in Yemen, the International Committee of the Red Cross said late Monday.

An ICRC statement said that Nourane Houas had arrived in Oman's capital, Muscat, after being freed by her Yemeni captors.