Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded by the sword two nationals convicted of murdering a Syrian and of armed robbery, the interior ministry said.

Ibrahim al-Qanbar and Ahmed al-Musalam were found guilty of attacking a labor camp and opening fire at residents, killing Mohammed al-Shuja and wounding another person, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

The U.N. rights office said Tuesday that it was pressing Egyptian authorities to let it deploy monitors in the crisis-wracked country.

Spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters that the office was seeking a green light to send "several" human rights observers to assess the situation.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday urged Muslim clerics attending a meeting in Amman to help contain the spillover of Syria's sectarian strife into the region.

"You are the scholars of the Islamic world and it is your responsibility to confront the ethnic and sectarian strife in Syria," the king told the group of clerics taking part in a conference at Jordan's Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought.

Fresh battles broke out Tuesday in strategic, majority Kurdish areas in Syria, as jihadists and the main Kurdish party fought each other for control, an NGO and activists said.

In the northeastern province of Hasakeh, "clashes broke out at dawn pitting the Committees for the Protection of the Kurdish People (YPG) against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Al-Nusra Front and other battalions," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Philippines on Tuesday ordered the mandatory evacuation of its 6,000 nationals in Egypt after Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario visited the country to investigate the security situation after days of violent clashes.

Rosario also ordered the deployment of a special team to Cairo to help speed the repatriation of the Filipinos, who he urged to contact their embassy.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian and wounded two others during an operation early Tuesday to arrest a Palestinian militant in the West Bank city of Jenin, the army said.

"During the activity, shots were fired at the forces and improvised explosive devices and rocks were hurled at the security personnel, injuring two soldiers," a military spokeswoman told Agence France Presse.

Egypt's media, both public and private, have lined up behind the government in portraying its fight against the Muslim Brotherhood as a "war on terror" and vilifying foreign journalists.

As police and troops chase down members of the Islamist group, from which ousted president Mohammed Morsi hails, the media have taken part in a "campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist currents", political commentator Hisham Kassem told Agence France Presse.

The Muslim Brotherhood has named an interim leader to head the group after its supreme guide was arrested Tuesday, the website of its political party said.

"Mahmoud Ezzat, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, will assume the role of supreme guide of the group on a temporary basis after the security forces of the bloody military coup arrested supreme guide Mohamed Badie," the Freedom and Justice Party website said.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon insisted Monday that U.N. experts be granted unrestricted access to Syrian sites under investigation for chemical weapons use as they began their mission.

Ban added that "the government and all other entities within Syria must ensure the safety and security of the mission."

Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government Monday to stop using live ammunition against protesters, as it challenged the official death toll from day one of the ongoing crisis.

In a statement, the New York-based human rights group said the large-scale use of live ammunition was not only unjustified, but also a failure to abide by international policing standards.