The visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria said Sunday it was possible to find "more than enough" evidence to convict people of crimes against international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.

The doors of Syria's prisons were flung open after an Islamist-led rebel alliance ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad this month, more than 13 years after his brutal repression of anti-government protests triggered a war that would kill more than 500,000 people.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed to retaliate against Yemen's Huthi rebels after they fired a missile at Tel Aviv, warning that Israel would target what he described as the last remaining arm of "Iran's axis of evil".

The Huthis struck Israel's commercial hub on Saturday with what they claimed was a ballistic missile, injuring 16 people and forcing many to leave their homes following the pre-dawn attack.

Two weeks after seizing power in a sweeping offensive, Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday said weapons in the country, including those held by Kurdish-led forces, would come under state control.

Sharaa spoke alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, after earlier meeting with Lebanese Druze leaders and vowing to end "negative interference" in the neighbouring country.

Pope Francis doubled down Sunday on his condemnation of Israel's strikes on the Gaza Strip, denouncing their "cruelty" for the second time in as many days despite Israel accusing him of "double standards".

"And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty," the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer.

It comes a day after the 88-year-old Argentine lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday, according to Gaza's rescue agency.

Iran's supreme leader denied Sunday that militant groups around the region functioned as Tehran's proxies, warning that if his country chose to "take action", it would not need them anyway.

The remarks came after a year in which Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza suffered heavy losses in wars with Israel, and two weeks after the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who had been a key link in Tehran's so-called axis of resistance.

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Sunday that Israeli strikes killed at least 35 Palestinians across the territory, more than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war.

The violence came even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever".

Israel has faced growing criticism of its actions during the war, triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, including from rights groups accusing it of "acts of genocide" which the Israeli government strongly denies.

Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes overnight and early Sunday killed at least 28 Palestinians, including at one family's home and at a school building the military said was used by Hamas.

There was no let-up in the violence in the Gaza Strip more than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever".

Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea early Sunday in "an apparent case of friendly fire," the US military said.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said later on Sunday they had "targeted" the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman a day earlier in an operation that led to "shooting down an F-18 aircraft" and thwarting "American-British aggression" against Yemen.

United States Central Command said late on Saturday that both US pilots were recovered alive but "initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries".

The smell of dampness rises through the dust at a private club in central Baghdad, one of many shut in a crackdown on alcohol sales in Iraq.

"We appealed to all authorities in the country, but no one listened to us," said the owner, a Christian who asked not to be named.

Although a law banning the sale and import of alcohol was passed in 2016 and came into force at the start of last year, its enforcement had been patchy.

But conservative lawmakers have a majority in parliament, and have pushed for stronger action.

On a hillside in Tunisia's northwestern highlands, women scour a sun-scorched field for the wild herbs they rely on for their livelihoods, but droughts and rising temperatures are making it ever harder to find the precious plants.

Yet the harvesters say they have little choice but to struggle on, as there are few opportunities in a country hit hard by unemployment, inflation and high living costs.