A silent crowd gathered in the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday to press the new authorities about the fate of relatives who went missing under Bashar al-Assad and to demand justice for their loved ones.

The fate of tens of thousands of people who disappeared under Assad -- who was ousted on December 8 by a coalition of Islamist-led rebels -- is a key question after more than 13 years of devastating civil war that saw upwards of half a million people killed.

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Afaf Mohammed did what she could not for more than a decade: she climbed Mount Qasyun to admire a sleeping Damascus "from the sky" and watch the sun rise.

Through the long years of Syria's civil war, which began in 2011 with a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, people were not allowed access to the mountain.

But now they can return to look down again on their capital, with its high-rise hotels and poor suburbs exhausted by war.

Huge crowds demonstrated in Yemen's capital on Friday, a day after Israeli jets pounded Huthi rebel targets in response to missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed group.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in rebel-held Sanaa, chanting and brandishing Kalashnikovs, placards and pistols as they listened to fiery anti-Israel speeches.

Large-scale demonstrations are a regular occurrence in Sanaa under the Iran-backed Huthis but Friday's protest followed a surge in hostilities with Israel, which struck multiple sites on Thursday.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen early Saturday, a day after the Huthi-held capital Sanaa was hit by fresh air strikes.

Sirens sounded in areas of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea on Saturday as "a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted... prior to crossing into Israeli territory", the Israeli military said.

The day before, a fresh air strike hit Sanaa, which Huthi rebels blamed on "US-British aggression" though it remains unclear who was behind it.

There was no comment from Israel, the United States or Britain.

Israeli air strikes hit rebel-held Sanaa's international airport and other targets in Yemen on Thursday as the head of the UN's World Health Organization said he and his team prepared to fly out.

Yemen's civil aviation authority said the airport planned to reopen on Friday after the strikes that it said occurred while the UN aircraft "was getting ready for its scheduled flight".

From tiny and impoverished Mayotte to oil-rich behemoth Saudi Arabia, prosperous European cities to overcrowded slums in Africa, nowhere was spared the devastating impact of supercharged climate disasters in 2024.

This year is the hottest in history, with record-breaking temperatures in the atmosphere and oceans acting like fuel for extreme weather around the world.

World Weather Attribution, experts on how global warming influences extreme events, said nearly every disaster they analysed over the past 12 months was intensified by climate change.

Israeli air strikes pummelled Sanaa's international airport and other targets in Yemen on Thursday, with Huthi rebel media reporting six deaths.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media he was at the airport during the strike, adding that "one of our plane's crew members was injured".

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they were aware of his presence at the time.

Syria's new authorities have arrested a military justice official who under ousted president Bashar al-Assad issued death sentences for detainees in the notorious Saydnaya prison, a war monitor said Thursday.

The confirmation by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights of his detention came a day after deadly clashes erupted in the coastal province of Tartus, an Assad stronghold, when gunmen sought to protect him.

Mohammed Kanjo Hassan is the highest-ranking officer whose arrest has been announced since Assad's ousting on December 8.

Palestinian sources said that Israeli strikes in Gaza on Thursday killed at least 45 people including hospital workers and journalists for a militant-linked broadcaster.

Five staff at one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals were among those killed, the facility's director said, more than two months into an Israeli operation in the area.

The quiet resumption of operations at a desalination plant in the Gaza Strip last month marked a small but significant step toward restoring public services in the Palestinian territory ravaged by more than 14 months of war.

The process of restarting the plant in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, involved both Israeli and Palestinian stakeholders who could have a hand in the territory's future, especially amid renewed hopes for a ceasefire in recent days.