Evidence has been uncovered in Syria that implicates President Bashar Assad and members of his entourage, in war crimes and crimes against humanity, U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said Monday

A U.N. commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Syria "has produced massive evidence ... (of) very serious crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity," she said, adding that "the evidence indicates responsibility at the highest level of government, including the head of state."

Egypt's draft constitution, which has been approved for a referendum, would consolidate the power of the military, which had promised a "democratic transition" when it ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

The document has raised fears among Islamists and secular activists alike of a return to a police state less than three years after Hosni Mubarak, an air force commander who went on to rule Egypt for 30 years, was toppled by pro-democracy protests.

Kuwait's top court on Monday upheld as constitutional a disputed law under which people who "offend" the emir can be jailed for up to five years.

The constitutional court rejected challenges by lawyers defending activists to demand the penal code provision be abolished for allegedly suppressing freedom of speech guaranteed under the basic law.

The toll in 33 months of Syria's brutal conflict has left nearly 126,000 people dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

The group, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and doctors on the ground in Syria, said it had documented 125,835 deaths in the conflict up to December 1.

Syria rebels moved into the center of the historic Christian town of Maalula on Monday after sending explosive-filled tires hurtling down on security forces deployed there, a security source said.

The rebels, including jihadists from the Al-Nusra Front, sent tires packed with explosives rolling down from positions in the cliffs above the town, the source said.

Syria's Democratic Union Party, the country's most powerful Kurdish group, hopes to create an autonomous Kurdish region in a federal Syria, its chief Salih Muslim told Agence France Presse in an interview.

Speaking during a visit to France, he confirmed that a commission is in the process of preparing a constitution for the northeastern and northwestern regions of Syria that are majority Kurdish.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Pope Francis on Monday as part of a visit to Rome during which he restated his firm opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran.

The two leaders addressed "the complex political and social situation in the Middle East, with particular reference to the resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians", the Vatican said in a statement.

Nine people, including three soldiers, were killed Monday when clashes broke out in southeastern Yemen's rugged Hadramawt region, officials said.

The defense ministry initially said the fighting erupted when al-Qaida militants attacked an army checkpoint, but the official SABA news agency later said it was a dispute between soldiers and a group of tribesmen, six of whom were killed.

A Libyan security forces member was killed Monday in the eastern city of Benghazi and a bomb exploded at the headquarters of a jihadist group without causing casualties, officials said.

The volatile city -- cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi -- has seen a string of attacks on security forces in recent days following deadly clashes between the army and the jihadist militia, known as Ansar al-Sharia.

A mortar shell fired from war-torn Syria struck the outskirts of a town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Monday, witnesses told Agence France Presse.

The shell landed on the western edge of Majdal Shams, some 50 meters (yards) from a house, but caused no injuries or damage, they said.