Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels announced Thursday they had booby-trapped and detonated the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion, stranded in the Red Sea after a drone and missile attack earlier this month.

The group's leader said the operation took place earlier this week. Since then, the rebels have agreed to allow rescue teams to access the ship.

A video shared on the rebels' media outlets showed masked men planting explosives on the vessel and then detonating them, causing several fires on board.

Naming others is considered a marker of highly advanced cognition in social animals, previously observed only in humans, bottlenose dolphins and African elephants.

Marmoset monkeys have now joined this exclusive club, according to a new study published in Science on Thursday.

The diminutive primates use loud, high-pitched calls to assign each other "vocal labels," as shown in research conducted by a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Israel has agreed to a series of three-day "humanitarian pauses" in Gaza to allow health officials to administer polio vaccinations to children in the territory, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

"The way we discussed and agreed, the campaign will start on the first of September, in central Gaza, for three days, and there will be a humanitarian pause during the vaccination," said Rik Peeperkorn, the agency's representative for Palestinian territories.

The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog hopes to visit Iran soon for talks with newly-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to a confidential report seen by AFP on Thursday.

Tensions between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly flared since a 2015 deal curbing Tehran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanction relief fell apart.

In recent years, Tehran has decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices needed to monitor the nuclear programme, and barred UN inspectors.

Four historic souks in northern Syria's Aleppo, heavily damaged during some of the most intense fighting of the 13-year civil war, reopened this week following their restoration.

"After I reopened my old shop, following the renovation of the market, I felt my spirit return with it," said merchant Omar al-Rawwas, 45, who inherited his family's carpet business at the revived Saqtiya 2 souk.

Wearing a sticker on her shirt that read "328" -- the number of days her son has been held hostage -- Rachel Goldberg-Polin went near the Israel-Gaza border on Thursday to deliver a message.

"Hersh! It's Mom... I pray to God he brings you back. Right now. I love you, stay strong, survive," she yelled into a microphone in hopes the 23-year-old Israeli-American might hear her.

She was joined by dozens of other relatives of hostages who are still held in the Gaza Strip nearly 11 months since Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel triggered the ongoing war.

At least 24 people have been killed in flash floods in western Yemen, a United Nations agency said on Thursday, as search efforts continued for those still missing.

Landslides triggered by torrential rains crashed through homes and businesses in Al-Mahwit province's Melhan district on Tuesday night burying some of their occupants.

The United Nations Population Fund in Yemen said on social media platform X that there were 24 dead and 17 missing in "devastating floods after rains and three dams burst" in the area controlled by the Huthi rebels.

The death toll from a three-day Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank rose to 20 on Friday, Israel and the Palestinian health ministry said, while violence raged on in the Gaza Strip.

It came as US-based aid group Anera said an Israeli strike killed four Palestinians accompanying its convoy on Thursday. The Israeli military reported it had struck armed assailants.

The UN's World Food Programme on Wednesday said it had suspended aid operations after one of its vehicles was hit by an Israeli strike.

Israel's military said troops killed a Palestinian militant leader and six others on Thursday, the second day of large-scale "counter-terrorism" operations in the occupied West Bank.

A military spokesman gave an overall death toll of 16 Palestinian militants since Israeli forces launched coordinated raids across the northern West Bank on Wednesday. The Palestinian health ministry reported at least 15 dead.

Iranian authorities on Wednesday indicted a leading woman filmmaker and her actress daughter with violating the Islamic dress code by appearing in public without the veil, the judiciary said.

"The Tehran prosecutor charged filmmaker Rakhshan Banietemad and her daughter, the actress Baran Kosari, after they removed their hijab in public," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

Banietemad, 70, is one of Iran first female screenwriters and film directors and has received several awards at the Tehran Fajr film festival, the country's largest.