Ukraine said talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia began "very constructively" on Tuesday, with a partial ceasefire with Russia on the table hours after Kyiv conducted its largest drone attack on Moscow in three years of war.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga attended the meeting in Jeddah -- which Russia was not participating in -- as President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on Ukraine to end the war that began with Russia's 2022 invasion.

Protesters in New York and rights groups expressed outrage Monday over the arrest of a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, as President Donald Trump vowed further crackdowns.

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate and one of the most prominent faces of the university's high-profile protests, was arrested by US immigration officials over the weekend despite holding a permanent residency green card.

For Gazan teacher Abdullah Mortaja, Israel's decision to cut off electricity to the war-battered territory was "a joke", having already lived with little power supply since war began more than 16 months ago.

The announcement Sunday by Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen followed a decision to block the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip in a bid to pressure Hamas to extend a fragile ceasefire on Israel's terms.

The Syrian presidency announced on Monday an agreement with the head of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate the institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government.

Syria's new authorities under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa have sought to disband armed groups and establish government control over the entirety of the country since ousting long-time leader Bashar al-Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that the detention of a leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York is "the first arrest of many to come."

"We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Members of Syria's small Christian community on the coast are living in fear after attacks killed more than 1,000 mostly Alawite civilians, with Christians reportedly caught up in the violence.

"The current conflict in Syria does not concern me, but we are its victims," said Ruwayda, a 36-year-old Christian from the port city of Latakia.

"There's a feeling that no one is protecting us," she told AFP.

"I feel a mix of both fear and anticipation for what lies ahead in Syria, but I feel certain that migration is the only option," she added.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Monday rejected Israel's assertion that other organisations could replace it in Gaza, insisting that only a Palestinian state "institution" could take over.

Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza and agency chief Philippe Lazzarini hit back after Israel's ambassador Daniel Meron told reporters that his country was "working to find substitutes to the work of UNRWA inside Gaza".

Israel was actively "encouraging UN agencies and NGOs to take over," he said.

Syria's new authorities announced on Monday the end of an operation against loyalists of deposed president Bashar al-Assad, after a war monitor reported more than 1,000 civilians killed in the worst violence since his overthrow.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the overwhelming majority of the 1,068 civilians killed since Thursday were members of the Alawite minority who were executed by the security forces or allied groups.

In their home in war-devastated Gaza City, Iman Farhat and her husband cherish the "paradise" brought by their newly-adopted baby, one of many orphans in the Palestinian territory after more than 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Wrapping five-month-old Jannah in a brightly coloured blanket, Farhat gently sang as she rocked her to sleep.

"I chose Jannah just as she was," the new mother said smiling, explaining the couple simply wanted to adopt a young child without preference for gender or physical appearance.

Olfa Meriah stands, frustrated, before a smartphone shop near the capital Tunis. How can she buy a phone in instalments, she wonders, when a new banking reform has made split payments nearly impossible?

In Tunisia, where the average monthly salary hovers just around 1,000 dinars ($320), people have long relied on post-dated cheques to make purchases by paying in increments over months.

Unlike many other countries where cheques are now rarely seen in the era of instant online payments, the culture of paying by cheque persists in Tunisia.