The Israeli air force has successfully tested an upgraded version of its "Iron Dome" missile defense system, the defense ministry said on Sunday.

"This test constitutes a new success in the project to strengthen the Iron Dome's performance," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement.

Kuwaiti riot police used stun grenades and smoke bombs against thousands of demonstrators who blocked a major road south of the capital on Sunday as the emir met four leading opposition figures.

After elite special forces and police completely sealed off the original protest site in Kuwait City, organizers told supporters via Twitter to gather instead at Mishref, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the capital.

Armed forces chief Benny Gantz said on Sunday the Syria conflict could become Israeli business, as fighting between regime forces and rebels raged near Israeli positions on the strategic Golan Heights.

"This is a Syrian affair that could turn into our affair," the army's website quoted him as saying during a visit to troops on the frontier. It added that he told the soldiers to be alert, but did not elaborate further.

Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters in Istanbul staging a demonstration in support of a widespread hunger strike by Kurdish prisoners.

Around 400 protesters were gathered outside the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) building, chanting "Evacuate prisons" and "Freedom to inmates", when police fired the tear gas and water cannon without warning.

French President Francois Hollande discussed Iran and the situation in unrest-hit Syria with Saudi King Abdullah in the city of Jeddah on Sunday on his first visit to the oil-rich kingdom, a spokesman said.

"The president discussed with King Abdullah the peace process in the Middle East, the Iranian nuclear programe, the Syrian crisis, as well as cooperation between both countries," Romain Nadal told Agence France Presse after a two-hour meeting between the leaders.

Israel was on Sunday split over the weight of remarks by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in which he appeared to give up on the right of refugees to return to homes they lost or fled from in the 1948 war.

His remarks were immediately welcomed as "courageous" by Israeli President Shimon Peres, but sparked a backlash of protest in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip where thousands burned pictures of the Palestinian leader.

Palestinian cars were vandalized overnight in the Shuafat neighborhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, in an attack that bore the hallmarks of a hate crime by Israeli rightwing extremists, Agence France Presse reported.

Six vehicles had their tires slashed and were daubed with slogans in Hebrew reading "Price tag," "Death to the enemy" and "Kippa Sruga" the name of a wildcat settlement outpost in the northern West Bank razed by Israeli security forces on Thursday.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has denied giving up on the refugees' right of return, saying remarks about not returning to his home town, which is now in Israel, was a "personal position."

"I have never and will never give up the right of return," he told Egypt's al-Hayatt Egyptian satellite channel late on Saturday, according to a transcript released on Sunday.

Rebels seized a major oilfield and shot down a warplane in eastern Syria Sunday, a watchdog said, notching up new battlefield successes even as the opposition met in Qatar under U.S. pressure for a makeover.

The rebel advances in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor came as their positions were pounded by warplanes around the capital Damascus and in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.

Iran's parliament on Sunday summoned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a grilling over his handling of last month's currency crisis which saw the rial plunge 40 percent against the dollar, state media said.

A total of 77 deputies in the 290-seat conservative-dominated parliament submitted a petition requiring Ahmadinejad to explain the "government's procrastination in managing the forex market," official IRNA news agency said.