An explosion hit an Egyptian pipeline feeding gas to Israel and Jordan on Sunday in the 10th such attack this year, Egyptian security services said.

The blast struck south of the town of el-Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula and targeted a segment of pipeline which was gas-free as it was under repair.

Jewish settlers attacked an army base overnight on rumors troops were to destroy a settlement outpost, hours after another group broke into a military zone on the Jordan border, officials said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the military said a group of around 50 people had attacked the Ephraim base near Qalqilya in the northern West Bank.

The Syrian embassy in Amman said on Sunday that a group of people broke into the mission and attacked the staff after claiming they had paperwork to complete.

"More than 10 people broke into the embassy today and when the security guard tried to kick them out, they beat him with tools they carried," the embassy said in a statement.

Jordan, the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, warned Israel on Friday against closing a wooden access ramp to the sensitive al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City.

"Jordan rejects any Israeli attempt to affect Jerusalem's holy sites, identity and heritage, including al-Moughrabi Gate" that leads to the compound's al-Buraq Wall, known to Jews as the Western Wall, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said.

Jordan has told the Arab League it does not want to impose trade sanctions and a flight ban on neighboring Syria, the foreign ministry said on Monday.

"We asked the Arab League ministerial committee in Doha last Saturday to exclude Jordan's trade and aviation sectors from the sanctions," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Kayed told Agence France Presse.

Syrian authorities on Monday arrested blogger Razan Ghazzawi at the border with Jordan as she headed to Amman to take part in a workshop on press freedom in the Arab world, activists said.

The Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression called for the release of Ghazzawi, who was to represent the group at the forum, and for the authorities to halt "the repression of bloggers and journalists" in Syria.

A senior U.S. official said on Sunday that the world is looking for peaceful ways to end "killing and brutality" in Syria, accusing Iran of supporting the murder of Syrian people.

"While the goal of all us is to find ways to stop the killing and brutality, we are looking for peaceful ways to do so," Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, told reporters in Amman.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed deep concern on Saturday after early results in Egypt's post-revolution election showed Islamists sweeping to victory.

"The process of Islamization in Arab countries is very worrying," Barak told Israel's private Channel Two television.

More than a thousand Jordanian protesters demonstrated Friday in central Amman calling for the country to be saved from corruption and demanding regime reforms.

"Saving Jordan from corruption is a national duty," read a banner carried by the protesters, including opposition Islamists and youth groups, who marched from Al-Husseini mosque to the nearby city hall in the city center.

Jordan's King Abdullah II told visiting Israeli President Shimon Peres on Monday that Israel's settlement building on Palestinian land posed a "serious obstacle" to peace efforts, the palace said.

"Israel must stop unilateral measures, particularly settlement building, which is a serious obstacle to peace efforts," the king told Peres, who was in Amman on a brief and previously unannounced visit.