Tunisian premier-designate Mehdi Jomaa, chosen to form a transitional government, promised Friday to do his utmost to ensure transparent elections and bring the country out of crisis, TAP news agency reported.

Jomaa said he would "favor the appropriate conditions for transparent and credible elections, the security of Tunisians and promoting the economy with the aim of emerging from the crisis" that erupted with the July assassination of a leading opposition MP.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian Friday in the northern Gaza Strip near the border with the Jewish state, emergency services and the news agency of the Hamas government said.

The man's body was recovered east of Beit Hanun, the emergency services said.

The United Nations' human rights office raised concerns Friday over the treatment of a Saudi activist punished for advocating a constitutional monarchy in the conservative oil-rich kingdom.

"We are deeply concerned about the intimidation and sometimes prosecution of individuals in Saudi Arabia for exercising their right to freedom of expression," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

France on Friday said indiscriminate air strikes by Syrian government forces on the city of Aleppo amounted to war crimes and called for a halt to such attacks.

The Doctors Without Borders medical charity says at least 189 people have been killed and nearly 900 wounded in the Aleppo bombings since Sunday, which come ahead of scheduled peace talks in Geneva next month.

Nine people have been killed in sectarian fighting in northern Yemen between Shiite Huthi rebels and Sunni Islamists backed by local tribes, a tribal source said Friday.

Huthi rebels have been battling the Sanaa government for nearly a decade in the remote Saada province, but the outbreak of fighting with Sunni militants has deepened the sectarian dimension of the unrest.

Syria's Kurds will send two delegations to upcoming peace talks, one with the opposition coalition and another with representatives of President Bashar Assad, opposition leader Ahmed Jarba said Friday.

"The Kurds will participate in the Geneva meeting in two delegations," Jarba, leader of the National Coalition, told Agence France Presse during a visit to the Kawergosk Syrian refugee camp in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

Negotiators failed Friday to reach an agreement on whether Iran should be invited to Syria peace talks in Switzerland next month, but Tehran is not yet "off the list", global peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said.

"On Iran, we haven't agreed yet. It's no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced that Iran's participation would be the right thing," Brahimi told reporters after talks with U.S. and Russian officials.

Saboteurs blew up a section of oil pipeline in eastern Yemen overnight for the second time, stopping the flow of crude, an oil ministry official said on Friday.

Armed men blew up the pipeline in the Al-Arqain area of Maarib province late on Thursday, just "one hour after it was repaired following a previous act sabotage", the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Attacks in Iraq, including bombings in a market and another at a cemetery where victims of the earlier attack were to be buried, killed 20 people on Friday, officials said.

In Tuz Khurmatu, 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, two bombs exploded in a livestock market, killing eight people and wounding 25.

Russia on Friday blocked a U.S.-drafted U.N. Security Council statement condemning the Syrian government's increasing military offensive on Aleppo, diplomats said.

The move heightened diplomatic tensions ahead of a key Russia-U.S.-U.N. meeting in Geneva on Friday on organizing an international Syria peace conference.