Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal lodged by former president Moshe Katsav, upholding his conviction on charges of rape and other sexual offences, press reports said.

The court also rejected an appeal against the seven-year sentence which he was handed in March.

An Egyptian pipeline delivering gas to Israel and Jordan was hit by two explosions Thursday, Egypt's security services and state media said, the seventh time it has been attacked by militants this year.

A first blast occurred around 1:00 am (23:00 GMT Wednesday) 40 kilometers west of the town of al-Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula, a security source said.

Western nations on Wednesday condemned opponents of UN action against Syria with France accusing many Security Council powers of "indifference" toward killings being carried out by government forces.

A Security Council debate on protecting civilians reopened diplomatic wounds over the NATO airstrikes in Libya as well as the failure to agree to a stance on President Bashar al-Assad's deadly crackdown in Syria.

The world must act to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday after the release of a key report by the U.N.'s atomic watchdog.

"The significance of the report is that the international community must bring about the cessation of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons which endanger the peace of the world and of the Middle East," he said in a statement issued by his office.

Syrian troops killed 12 civilians on Wednesday, five of whom were attending a funeral in Damascus and were caught up in the regime's continuing crackdown on dissent, a human rights group said.

However, local Syrian coordination committees reported that 25 people have been killed at the hands of Syrian security forces in Homs, Daraa, and Reef Hama on Wednesday, reported al-Arabiya television.

The arrest of Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam is just a matter of time, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Wednesday.

"The question is not if he will be arrested, it's when," Moreno-Ocampo told a press conference at the court's headquarters in The Hague.

Angry Syrian protesters pelted a group of opposition leaders with eggs outside Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Wednesday, preventing them from entering the building for talks with the organization's chief about the violence in Syria.

The scuffle highlights the deep divisions within the Syrian opposition, which is struggling to overcome infighting and inexperience eight months into the uprising against President Bashar Assad's autocratic regime.

A radical group in Yemen announced on Wednesday that a film will be produced documenting the life of slain U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi and which will include a previously unknown message to Americans.

Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law) said "a film on Awlaqi's life will be produced in both Arabic and English on his role in reviving the rite of jihad (holy war) in the hearts of many Muslim youths, especially in Arab societies," the al-Qaida linked group said in a statement.

The deputy chief of Iran's armed forces warned on Wednesday that any attack by Israel would bring "destruction" of the Jewish state and that Iran's retaliation would be felt outside the Middle East as well.

Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri stressed that the Israeli nuclear site of Dimona was "the most accessible" target, and that "our response would not be limited to the Middle East," according to an interview given to the Iranian Arabic-language channel al-Alam.

Israeli warplanes raided the Gaza Strip early Wednesday after a rocket was fired at southern Israel, a military spokesman said.

"The air force targeted a site used for terrorist activities in the south of the Gaza Strip which was hit," he said in a statement.