Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi visits on Tuesday Iran, his country's key regional ally, a week after Syrian rebels freed 48 Iranians held hostage for more than five months, the foreign ministry said.

"The Syrian prime minister, leading a high-ranking political and economic delegation, arrives in Tehran tomorrow," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted by the ISNA news agency on Monday.

Fifty-seven countries on Monday demanded that the U.N. Security Council refer the Syria conflict to the International Criminal Court for a war crimes investigation.

Switzerland sent a petition demanding the move to the 15-member Security Council, the only body that can refer the case to the ICC but which is bitterly divided over the 22-month-old war.

Syria's official media lashed out at U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Monday, denouncing him as an "aging tourist" after his criticism of President Bashar Assad's peace plan.

The latest attack on the veteran Algerian diplomat follows stinging criticism by the regime and its media since Brahimi last week termed the plan announced by Assad as "perhaps even more sectarian, more one-sided" than previous initiatives.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi on Monday called for a "new approach" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, slamming previous processes as a waste of time.

"In order to solve this problem, we should have a new mechanism and new methods and a new approach to dealing with the crisis," Arabi told reporters after talks with the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy.

Iraq has freed 335 inmates in the past week, a top minister said Monday while apologizing to detainees held without charge, part of efforts to curb weeks of rallies by meeting key demands of protesters.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has alternated tough talk with offers of concessions to demonstrators amid a political crisis that has pitted him against his erstwhile government partners.

A Palestinian man was in serious condition on Monday after being shot by Israeli troops in northern Gaza near Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medical sources said.

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra named the man as 21-year-old Mustafa Abu Jirad, a farmer, saying he was shot in the head in an area near Gaza's border with Israel, in the northern part of the territory.

Saudi King Abdullah has appointed Prince Saud bin Nayef as the new governor of the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province, home to the Shiite minority that frequently complains of discrimination, the official SPA news agency reported Monday.

Prince Saud replaces Prince Mohammed bin Fahd who was in office since 1985 but was strongly criticized by Shiite activists for his aggressive policy towards them.

At least 26 children were killed in violence in Syria on Monday, a watchdog said, fueling international calls for a war crimes probe into the 22-month conflict.

Reports of the child deaths came as Human Rights Watch accused President Bashar Assad's regime of expanding its use of banned cluster bombs.

Rape has been a "significant" weapon of war in the conflict raging in Syria since March 2011 and is the "primary" factor in the exodus of women and children refugees to neighboring Jordan and Lebanon, an aid group said on Monday.

In its report, "Syria: A Regional Crisis," the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) described rape "as a significant and disturbing feature of the Syrian civil war".

Israel's hard-line former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman indicated on Monday that he would quit politics if convicted in his breach of trust and fraud case.

Such a decision could shake up the Israeli political system, because Lieberman is the driving force behind his kingmaker party, Yisrael Beiteinu.