New EU guidelines barring its 28 members from funding projects in Jewish settlements mean Israel must move towards resuming peace talks instead of stalling, or risk international isolation, officials and commentators say.

The guidelines forbid dealing with or funding Israeli entities that lie outside Israel proper and beyond the so-called 1967 Green Line -- that is, in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

Saudi authorities banned on Wednesday Ethiopian workers from entering the country following reports of crimes against children committed by maids from the African nation.

The labor ministry and the interior ministry have agreed to "temporarily" stop the importation of workers from Ethiopia, SPA state news agency said.

A bombing killed three children at a popular swimming area in Iraq on Wednesday after a similar attack two days before, while seven people died in other violence, officials said.

The bomb was planted near Al-Shakha river in the Muqdadiyah area northeast of Baghdad.

France on Wednesday called for Egypt's new caretaker cabinet to be more inclusive, saying all the country's political movements were needed for a smooth transition.

"We want the new government to be able to meet the many expectations of the Egyptian people and to make every effort to ensure the fastest-possible transition of power to a democratically elected government," foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.

Gunmen attacked an Egyptian army checkpoint in the Sinai border town of Rafah wounding eight people, security sources said Wednesday, as troops massed for an offensive against Islamist militants in the restive region.

The attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at the checkpoint in a residential area of Rafah late on Tuesday, before fleeing in their all-terrain vehicle, the sources said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is "determined" to announce resumed Middle East peace talks before he leaves the region at the end of the week, a Palestinian official said Wednesday.

"There has been progress in meetings with Kerry after he presented his initiative to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in a meeting in Amman," the high-ranking official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Kurdish fighters have expelled jihadists from the Syrian flashpoint frontier town of Ras al-Ain and the nearby border crossing with Turkey, a watchdog said on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, a car bomb attack killed at least seven people, among them a child, southwest of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Vandals slashed the tires of 12 cars in a mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem overnight, a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday, indicating that the vehicles all belonged to Jewish Israelis.

"The tires of 12 cars belonging to Jewish citizens living in the Abu Tor neighborhood were found slashed," Luba Samri said in a statement.

A 17-year-old Turk died of his injuries in a southeastern town on Wednesday after being hit by stray gunfire coming across the border from war-torn Syria, Turkish media reported.

Mahsun Ertugrul died in hospital after receiving a gunshot to the chest in the small Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar on Tuesday, Dogan news agency said.

Gunmen from Syria infiltrated a disused army outpost in the Israeli-occupied area of the Golan Heights just beyond the ceasefire line, a military spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The incident, which occurred overnight, saw an unspecified number of Syrian gunmen entering the position and firing towards an Israeli army patrol, which returned fire.