The Muslim Brotherhood's candidate for Egypt's presidency, Khairat el-Shater, has pledged to press for the implementation of sharia (Islamic law) if elected, a Muslim think tank said on Wednesday.

Shater, whose candidacy for the May election sent political shock waves throughout the post-uprising country, said implementing the sharia was "his first and final goal," said the Legal Authority for Rights and Reform after meeting with him on Tuesday.

Fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, accused of running a death squad, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after a four-day visit to neighboring Qatar, a top Saudi official told Agence France Presse.

"The vice president has arrived in the kingdom and he has met with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Syria security forces killed at least 44 people on Wednesday, amid fierce clashes and fresh military operations, activists said.

Fifteen people were killed in an explosion that destroyed two buildings in the Damascus suburb of Beit Sahem, while 21 people were shot dead in Homs, six in Idlib and two in Hama, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Wednesday "advised" neighboring Arab states in the Gulf not to adopt a missile shield project being promoted by the United States.

"From the start we have rejected such a project, which is contrary to regional security, and we advise our friends to not take part in such a game," Vahidi was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

Israel's government on Wednesday published tenders for 1,121 new settler homes as it faced settler anger over its decision to evict Israeli families from a disputed home in the Palestinian city of Hebron.

Documents published on the Israeli housing ministry website showed the government had issued tenders for 872 new homes in Har Homa, a contentious settlement neighborhood in the southern part of Arab east Jerusalem.

International Committee of the Red Cross chief Jakob Kellenberger traveled on Wednesday to Daraa to assess the humanitarian needs in the birthplace of Syria's year-long uprising, the ICRC said.

Two lorries filled with food aid and hygiene kits, as well as 500 blankets, were unloaded at Red Cross depots in Daraa ready for distribution, ICRC spokesman in Damascus Saleh Dabbakeh told Agence France Presse.

Palestinian medics on Wednesday found the body of a Palestinian man who was shot dead by Israeli troops overnight east of Gaza City, close to the border, a spokesman said.

"The body of a Palestinian martyr who was killed by Israeli fire was found at dawn to the east of Gaza City's cemetery," said emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will seek to legalize three settler outposts established illegally in the West Bank, he told his government on Wednesday.

"It is my intention to bring to the government in the near future a recommendation from the defense minister, and the necessary permissions, for regulating the status of the communities of Bruchin, Sansana and Rekhelim," he said.

Civil society groups in Gulf States on Wednesday warned Bahraini authorities over the life of a jailed activist who has been on a hunger strike for almost two months and demanded his release.

"The Bahraini government and the ruling family will be held responsible for any harm resulting from the ongoing (hunger) strike of rights activist Abduhadi al-Khawaja," said a statement by the Gulf Forum for Civil Societies signed by its secretary general Anwar al-Rasheed.

Syria's opposition will never defeat President Bashar Assad's army even if it is "armed to the teeth," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

"It is clear as day that even if the Syrian opposition is armed to the teeth, it will not be able to defeat the government's army," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying while on a visit to the ex-Soviet nation of Azerbaijan.