A free speech watchdog on Monday condemned as "grotesque" Saudi Arabia's appointment to head a panel advising the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Riyadh's ambassador to the Rights Council, Faisal bin Hassan Trad, "was quietly appointed" in June to head the five-member panel advising the council, meeting in Geneva, said Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

A fire forced some 1,500 people from their hotel in the Saudi city of Mecca on Monday as hundreds of thousands gathered for the hajj pilgrimage, the civil defense department said.

Four Yemeni pilgrims sustained minor injuries following the pre-dawn fire in a 15-story hotel, state news agency SPA quoted the department as saying.

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Assiri stressed on Sunday that the Saudi King has given instructions to receive the flights transporting pilgrims from Lebanon to Mecca to perform the Islamic hajj pilgrimage.

“King Salam Bin Abdul Aziz has given instructions to open the skies for Lebanese pilgrims and to receive the flights of the Middle East Airlines (transporting the pilgrims),” the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation quoted the ambassador.

A Saudi-led coalition is making slow but steady progress five days into a major offensive towards the rebel-held capital of Yemen, a coalition source said Friday.

Giving a rare update on the fighting in Marib province, east of Sanaa, the source told AFP "things are going slowly but surely."

The safety of Muslim pilgrims traveling to Saudi Arabia is a priority, the crown prince said Friday, assuring that a deadly crane accident at Islam's holiest site will not affect this year's hajj.

Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was referring to a tragedy a week ago, when a massive crane being used in work on an expansion of Mecca's Grand Mosque toppled into a courtyard, killing 108 people.

Shelling from across the border in Yemen killed three people in Saudi Arabia Friday and wounded 28, the civil defense agency said.

The agency described the deceased as residents of the Saudi border district of Jazan, while Saudi news channel al-Ekhbaria said they were foreigners.

Pilgrims from around the world have begun massing in Saudi Arabia for the hajj, one of the biggest gatherings on the planet, undeterred by a crane collapse that killed 108 people at Islam's holiest site.

More than 1.2 million faithful have already arrived for the annual hajj, which begins on Tuesday against a backdrop of increased jihadi violence, a surge of the deadly MERS virus and with the kingdom at war in Yemen.

Nepal on Thursday urged India to push for justice as it investigates a top Saudi diplomat accused of holding captive and raping two Nepalese maids, after he left the country under diplomatic immunity.

Majed Hassan Ashoor, the Saudi Embassy's First Secretary in New Delhi, is accused of beating and sexually abusing the two women, aged 30 and 50, while they were imprisoned in his apartment outside New Delhi. 

Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen claim to have captured several troops from Saudi Arabia, which is leading a coalition against the insurgents, parading one of the soldiers on television.

The Iran-backed rebels' Al-Masirah television late on Wednesday showed footage of a man dressed in military fatigues who identified himself as Sergeant Ibrahim Hakmi of a Saudi brigade based in the Jazan border area.

Saudi King Salman has appealed to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and members of the Security Council for "urgent measures" after clashes at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, state media reported late Wednesday.

Salman "expressed strong condemnation of the dangerous Israeli escalation" at the holy site where Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli police for three straight days, the Saudi Press Agency reported.