Human Rights Watch urged Sunday Egypt's military-installed government to free five aides of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, who have been detained since July without any legal basis.

"Almost five months later, the government has yet to formally acknowledge their detention or disclose their fate or whereabouts, conditions that constitute enforced disappearance," the rights watchdog said in a statement,

Libya's capital was hit by traffic jams on Sunday after an overnight downpour flooded several districts, blocking roads, causing power cuts and damaging several homes.

Despite the flood-waters receding after the deluge late on Saturday, many residents were still clearing up as homes in several districts remained without power.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will visit neighboring Iran on Wednesday to discuss bilateral relations between the two Shiite-majority countries as well as the Syria conflict, Iranian media reported.

The visit will be Maliki's first to Tehran since Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who champions engagement with the West, became Iran's president in August after defeating a pool of conservative candidates in June's election.

Israel is to join a United Nations rights body with which it has been feuding for years, as a member of its European bloc, an Israeli official said on Sunday.

Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, the official confirmed Israeli membership of the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) in the U.N. Human Rights Council had been approved and a formal invitation was expected shortly.

At least 24 people, including four children, were killed Sunday in a second day of deadly air strikes on al-Bab in northern Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as the deputy foreign minister stressed that no solution will be implemented in the country without President Bashar Assad's approval.

The Britain-based monitoring group said the 24 people were killed when regime helicopters dropped explosives-laden barrels on a market area of al-Bab, a day after similar attacks killed at least 26 others in the same town.

Human Rights Watch on Sunday urged Saudi authorities to launch a probe into violence that accompanied a crackdown launched last month against illegal migrant workers.

It also warned of a "humanitarian disaster" if the workers remain held in deportation centers across the Gulf kingdom.

A mortar shell hit the French school in the Syrian capital Damascus on Sunday without causing any injuries to children in class at the time, officials said.

"A mortar shell landed on the chimney of a classroom around 9:00 am (0700 GMT). No one was hurt but the windows shattered and the walls cracked," school receptionist Bashir Oneiz told AFP.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Rome on Sunday for a two-day official visit during which he will meet Pope Francis for the first time.

The Israeli leader took off around midday accompanied by six of his ministers, including his newly reappointed Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, public radio said.

A suicide bombing at the funeral of an Iraqi anti-Qaida fighter killed 12 people Sunday as figures showed nearly 950 people died last month in spiraling violence ahead of elections.

The violence, Iraq's worst protracted period of unrest since it emerged from a gruesome Sunni-Shiite sectarian war, has sparked fears the country is slipping back into all-out bloodletting.

An Egyptian panel Sunday focuses on the army as it votes on a new constitution, the first step in a "democratic transition" pledged after the military ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

If adopted, the charter will be put to a popular referendum early next year, followed by parliamentary and presidential elections by mid-2014.