Syrian troops and Islamist rebels battled close to the armistice line with Israel in the Golan Heights on Monday, as the U.N. pressed efforts to free 44 peacekeepers held by the insurgents.

The unrest on Israel's doorstep followed a spillover of mortar and gunfire into Israeli-controlled territory, putting the Jewish state on high alert and prompting it to shoot down a drone over the occupied plateau on Sunday.

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday debated whether to send an emergency mission to Iraq to investigate suspected "crimes against humanity" by the Islamic State, as Baghdad called the jihadists an "imminent threat" to the world.

"This terrorist organization must be criminalized and its acts must be criminalized because they are equivalent to genocide and crimes against humanity," Iraqi Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told the council.

Hizbullah reportedly abducted three high-ranking members from the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front, the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper reported on Monday.

According to sources, Hizbullah abducted the three officials in Syria's al-Qalamun region, where Hizbullah has been taking part in the fighting to aid President Bashar Assad's troops.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday defended Australia's military involvement in battling Islamic State militants, calling the jihadist group a "death cult" involved in ethnic cleansing.

Australia on Sunday agreed to help the United States in an international effort to transport weapons to Kurdish forces fighting the IS in northern Iraq, as well as humanitarian air drops to the besieged town of Amerli.

Lebanese nationals and Syrian refugees have traveled to Iraq to join the Islamic State group's fighters and to train there to set up terrorist cells in Lebanon, An Nahar daily reported on Monday.

The fighters have been traveling to Iraq since mid-June, the newspaper quoted informed officials as saying.

The al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front will reportedly keep the Shiite Lebanese hostages it had kidnapped last month in the northeastern border town of Arsal, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Monday.

Sources told the newspaper that jihadists will soon free Sunni, Christian and Druze abductees but will keep the Shiites in their custody.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad swore in his new government on Sunday, saying security and reconstruction would be top priorities and urging ministers to tackle corruption.

The new government, appointed earlier this week after Assad's June re-election, takes office as the death toll in the country's conflict since March 2011 soars past 191,000.

At least 37 children have been killed in government air strikes and shelling across Syria in the last 36 hours, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Sunday.

The Britain-based Observatory said 20 children had been killed between midnight on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, with 17 more killed between Friday and Saturday night.

A 22-year-old man suspected of acting as a recruiter for jihadist groups in Syria has been arrested at an airport in the south of France, the interior ministry said Sunday.

The man, who is said to be of Chechen origin, was stopped at the Nice airport on Saturday and taken into custody.

Israel downed a drone over the occupied Golan Heights on Sunday, the army said, amid mounting tension on the U.N.-patrolled armistice line with Syria on the strategic plateau.

Air defenses "successfully intercepted an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that breached Israel airspace above the border with Syria," an Israeli army statement said.