Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the Syrian regime of perpetrating an "atrocity" against anti-government demonstrators, the Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

"I talked to Mr. Assad (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) four or five days ago. ... But they underestimate the situation," Erdogan told Anatolia.

Israeli forces on Friday arrested a senior Hamas official in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security officials said.

Wasfi Qabha, 50, who had served as a minister for prisoner affairs in the Hamas government in 2006, was taken from his home in Jenin early on Friday morning the officials said.

The international Red Cross called Friday for immediate access to Syria, with its president Jakob Kellenberger saying he is ready to head to the country to discuss the issue.

"Vital humanitarian assistance must reach vulnerable people without delay," said Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, adding that the relief agency was ready to deploy its staff.

The attack that injured Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was an assassination bid, likely an "inside job," using an explosive device, not a mortar or tank round, U.S. experts said Thursday.

STRATFOR, a U.S.-based authority on strategic and tactical intelligence issues, said its assessment was based on an evaluation of photographs taken of the blast site, a mosque inside Saleh's presidential compound in Sanaa.

Britain said Thursday it stood by allegations that Iran is helping Syria violently crush protests, after the British envoy in Tehran was summoned to the foreign ministry over the claims.

Iranian state television earlier reported that officials had told British Charge d'Affaires Jane Marriott that the comments by Foreign Minister William Hague on Tuesday were "based on a series of lies."

A U.N. human rights investigator on Thursday cast doubts over claims by the chief International Criminal Court prosecutor of evidence that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had ordered mass rapes.

The ICC's Luis Moreno-Ocampo had said Wednesday that there was evidence the Libyan authorities bought "Viagra-type" medicines and gave them to troops as part of the official rape policy.

French broadcaster France 24 is taking legal action for an alleged hoax in which a woman claiming to be Syria's ambassador to Paris announced her resignation live on air, the channel said Thursday.

"France 24 has officially filed a complaint to the Paris public prosecutor regarding identity theft and impersonation," the channel said in a statement.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Thursday accused the Syrian government of "massacring" its civilians who are seeking “more freedom and democracy.”

"The attitude of Syria is unacceptable," he said.

The U.N. atomic watchdog voted to report Syria to the United Nations Security Council Thursday over allegations it built an undeclared nuclear reactor that was then destroyed by Israeli bombs, diplomats said.

At a closed-door meeting of the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 17 countries voted in favor of a corresponding resolution by the United States and six against, diplomats attending the meeting said.

Major powers met Thursday to map out what Washington calls an inevitable "post-Gadhafi Libya" as hundreds of millions of dollars poured into an international fund to aid rebels.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counterparts from NATO and other countries participating in air strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's administration held their third round of Libya talks in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi.