Israel's premier and the head of internal security are engaged in a very public spat over reforms to the agency, accused of failing to prevent the October 7, 2023 attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar of resorting to "blackmail" and "threats" over the proposed reforms.

On Thursday, Bar's predecessor Nadav Argaman added oil to the fire in an interview he gave to Israel's privately owned Channel 12 television.

Hamas said on Friday it was ready to free an Israeli-American hostage and the remains of four others, after the Palestinian militants and Israel resumed indirect Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

However, Israel said Hamas had "not budged" following a proposal from US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

The White House accused Hamas of making "entirely impractical" demands.

"Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not," a statement from Witkoff's office and the US National Security Council said.

Dozens of Syrian Druze clerics crossed the armistice line on the Golan Heights into Israel on Friday for their community's first pilgrimage to a revered shrine in decades.

On board three buses escorted by Israeli military vehicles, the clerics crossed at Majdal Shams in the Golan, and headed to northern Israel.

According to a source close to the group, the delegation of around 60 clerics was due to meet the spiritual leader of Israel's Druze community, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif.

Iran is increasingly using digital and surveillance technology and "state-sponsored vigilantism" to crush dissent after the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests in 2022, a UN investigation said Friday.

Tehran is making "concerted state efforts to stifle dissent, perpetuating a climate of fear and systematic impunity", the United Nations' Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said in a new report.

These involve "the increased use of technology and surveillance, including through state-sponsored vigilantism".

China urged an end to "illegal" sanctions on Iran as it hosted Iranian and Russian diplomats on Friday for talks Beijing hopes will restart long-stalled negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme.

The United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 deal, which imposed curbs on Tehran's nuclear development in return for sanctions relief, during US President Donald Trump's first term.

Turkey's top diplomat travelled to Damascus on Thursday as Ankara said foreign fighters must be expelled from Syria, after an agreement spearheaded by the war-torn country's new authorities to disband armed groups.

Flanked by Turkey's defence minister and its spy chief, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was paying a "working visit" to Syria, the ministry said in a statement, without further details.

Fidan was due to meet with Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the Islamist HTS group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December, according to state-run TRT television.

Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa hailed the start of a "new history" for his country on Thursday, signing into force a constitutional declaration regulating its five-year transitional period and laying out rights for women and freedom of expression.

The declaration comes three months after Islamist-led rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad's repressive government, leading to calls for an inclusive new Syria that respects rights.

US President Donald Trump has been condemned by Jewish and Muslim groups for using the term "Palestinian" as a slur in an attack on the country's highest-ranking elected Jewish official.

In comments to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer had "become a Palestinian."

"He used to be Jewish. He's not Jewish anymore, he's a Palestinian," Trump said.

Schumer, a long-serving Democratic senator from New York, has resisted Republican pressure this week to back their stopgap plan to avoid a government shutdown.

An Iranian sports climber, widely praised in 2022 for competing without a hijab at the height of nationwide protests, has left the country, her brother and an Iranian official said.

Elnaz Rekabi gained global attention in October 2022 when she took part in championships in South Korea without wearing the headscarf required for women in the Islamic republic.

She returned home and largely vanished from public view, with some Persian-language media based outside Iran reporting she had been placed under house arrest and banned from competing abroad.

Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed the Israeli Air Force conducted a strike in Damascus on Thursday, with the military saying it had hit a "command centre" of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

A war monitor reported one person killed, with Syrian state media saying the strike had targeted a building in the capital.

Islamic Jihad fought alongside Hamas against Israel in Gaza before a fragile truce began in January.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that such strikes would be carried out across the region against "whoever attacks us".