A strike by Tunisians protesting government neglect has degenerated into clashes with police that have left 14 people wounded.

Witnesses and the state news agency reported that residents of the central town of Siliana went on a general strike Tuesday and marched through the streets, demanding more government funds and development for their town.

The Israeli foreign ministry said on Tuesday that a French decision to back a Palestinian bid for enhanced United Nations status at the General Assembly "comes as no surprise."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told parliament that Paris would say "yes" in Thursday's vote on a call for "non-member observer state" status for the Palestinians, recalling France's "consistent position" on the issue.

There was "no mistake" in an Israeli air strike that killed 12 Palestinians in Gaza, including 10 from the same family, the Israeli army said on Tuesday, saying the raid targeted a "terror operative."

The November 18 strike, in the middle of a conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, hit the home of the Dallu family, killing 10 of its members, and two neighbors, including five children and five women.

France on Tuesday said it will back a Palestinian bid for enhanced United Nations status at a General Assembly vote this week, just a year after a failed attempt to secure full state membership.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius recalled Paris's "consistent position" on the issue and told the National Assembly that France, one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, would vote for a "non-member observer state" status for the Palestinians.

Jailed Iranian rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been held in solitary confinement and reportedly began a hunger strike last month, is in "good health," Iran's top human rights official said Tuesday.

"Based on reports we have received, she is in good health and has met with her family," Mohammad Javad Larijani, head of the judiciary's High Council of Human Rights, told reporters.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to visit Syrian refugee camps in Turkey next week and to meet top officials including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an official said Tuesday.

More than 120,000 Syrians have crossed into Turkey to flee the deadly violence that has engulfed their home country for 20 months, according to official figures, although the actual number is likely to be much higher.

Fighting raged around the Syrian capital Damascus and in northern Syria, where at least five people died in an air strike near an olive press, a watchdog said.

Fighting has raged around Damascus since summer, when the army launched an intensive operation to drive rebels out of their strongholds near the capital, particularly in southern districts.

Japan said Tuesday it was expanding the reach of its sanctions against the Syrian government, in a gesture ahead of a meeting this week in Tokyo aimed at increasing pressure on the regime.

In September last year Tokyo imposed a freeze on assets held in Japan by the Syrian president Bashar Assad and military leaders, in concert with European countries and the United States.

Israel's former foreign minister Tzipi Livni announced her return to politics on Tuesday at the helm of a new party called The Movement, nearly seven months after stepping aside following a primary defeat.

"I have decided to return to politics... and to create a political party that I have named 'The Movement'," she told a press conference in Tel Aviv eight weeks before snap elections on January 22.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on Syria's army to stop using cluster bombs, two days after at least 11 children were killed in an air strike on the town of Deir Assafir south of Damascus.

"This attack shows how cluster munitions kill without discriminating between civilians and military personnel," said Mary Wareham, the New York-based rights group's arms division advocacy director.