Despite severe wintry conditions, thousands of Syrians gathered across the country for Friday demonstrations denouncing the "death camps", an allusion to the suffering of refugees living in tent settlements in neighboring countries, which this week were hit by snowstorms and floods.

The U.N. said that 612,134 Syrians had been registered as refugees in the region or were in the process of being registered, a sharp rise from the 509,550 announced on December 11.

With just 11 left before voting day, one in four Israelis are still unsure about who to back in the January 22 general elections for the country's 19th Knesset, a survey showed on Friday.

According the results of a poll in the Maariv newspaper, only two thirds of respondents -- 67 percent -- knew how they were going to vote, while 25 percent said they were undecided.

Thousands of Sunni Muslims took to the streets of Baghdad and other parts of Iraq on Friday to decry the alleged targeting of their minority, in rallies hardening opposition to the country's Shiite leader.

The protests have worsened a political crisis, pitting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against his erstwhile government partners, with the premier facing accusations of authoritarianism and sectarianism ahead of key provincial polls.

The U.N.'s human rights body on Friday said it was 'deeply' dismayed by Saudi Arabi's beheading of a Sri Lankan maid convicted of murdering her employer's baby.

"We express our deep dismay at the execution," Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

Around 200 olive trees in a northern West Bank village were discovered vandalized on Friday, with residents blaming settlers from a nearby outpost for the damage.

According to Palestinian security officials and residents of Qusra, residents of the nearby Esh Kodesh outpost were behind the destruction.

The U.N.'s human rights body on Friday said it was 'deeply' dismayed by Saudi Arabia's beheading of a Sri Lankan maid convicted of murdering her employer's baby.

"We express our deep dismay at the execution," Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been invited by his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Morsi to attend a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Cairo next month, media said Friday.

The invitation was extended during a visit to Cairo by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who held talks on Thursday with Morsi as well as with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Kamel Amr, Iranian media reported.

The number of Syrian refugees registered in neighboring countries and North Africa has jumped by more than 100,000 in the past month to over 600,000, the U.N.'s refugee body said Friday.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said that as of Thursday, 612,134 Syrians had either been registered as refugees in neighboring countries or were in the process of being registered, up from 509,550 announced on December 11.

Saudi King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the previously all-male consultative Shura Council in decrees published on Friday, marking a historic first as he pushes reforms in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The decrees, published by the official SPA news agency, give women a 20 percent quota in the Shura Council, a body appointed by the king to advise him on policy and legislation.

U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was meeting with top U.S. and Russian officials Friday on the Syria crisis although there was little hope of a breakthrough.

Brahimi, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns were meeting at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. They made no comment as they arrived for the closed-door talks.