Deep in the Saudi Arabian desert, a group of robed men are peering into the sky, trying to spot the crescent moon that signifies the start of Ramadan.

Their work is significant: an official sighting of the moon begins a month of fasting and prayer for millions of Muslims in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest sites, and beyond.

"I feel a great responsibility, before God above all... and I seek success because the matter is related to the fasting of all Muslims," said Abdullah al-Khudairi, director of the Majmaah University Astronomical Observatory.

Lebanese on Friday conducted a delayed burial in a border village for more than 90 civilians and fighters from the Hezbollah movement who died during the war with Israel that ended with a November ceasefire.

Under the truce, Israel had an initial 60 days, later extended to February 18, to pull out its troops from southern Lebanon, but it did not withdraw most of them until the later deadline.

In the heavily damaged town square of Aitaroun, the coffins arrived on four trucks, some covered in the yellow flag of Iran-backed Hezbollah, others in the national flag.

Syrian refugee Khaled Alnomman said he made a big effort to integrate since he fled to Austria 10 years ago, learning to speak German fluently, getting a job as a bricklayer and applying for citizenship.

The youngest of his four children was born in Austria and the others feel more Austrian than Syrian having grown up in the Alpine country.

But as they celebrated the fall of the Assad regime in January, their lives were turned upside down when they received a letter from the Austrian authorities saying they wanted to revoke their refugee status.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday spoke to Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, urging him to release a British citizen and activist jailed in Cairo, Downing Street said.

"The prime minister discussed the case of British national Alaa Abd El-Fattah with President Sisi. He pressed for Alaa's release, having met his mother Laila Soueif in recent weeks," Downing Street said in a readout of the pair's telephone call.

US President Donald Trump's idea to rebuild the Gaza Strip as a swanky riviera is unacceptable unless it is for Gazans themselves to live in, a Palestinian minister said on Friday.

"It's very good to rebuild Gaza as a riviera -- but with its people in it," said Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian.

Trump's vision for Gaza involves the United States taking over the occupied Palestinian territory, resettling its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere and transforming the war-ravaged strip into a riviera for "world people".

For Muslims in Saudi Arabia and most Sunni-ruled Middle Eastern states Ramadan will begin on Saturday, but in Shiite-majority Iran and Iraq it will start the following day, authorities announced.

The holy month, during which hundreds of millions of faithful around the world observe a daytime fast, traditionally begins with the sighting of the crescent moon.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's two holiest sites, was joined by its Gulf Arab neighbours in declaring that the moon had been sighted on Friday.

Eli Sharabi, who was held hostage in Gaza for more than 490 days, has recounted his suffering in captivity in a televised interview, an extract of which was posted on social media by Israel's foreign ministry Friday.

"For a year and four months my legs were shackled with chains with very, very heavy locks that cut into your flesh," Sharabi said in the interview broadcast late Thursday on Israel's Channel 12.

He spoke of intense hunger, food deprivation and the days when the only thing to eat was "this quarter of a pita that you can finish in three bites".

Thousands lined the streets around the Israeli commericial hub Tel Aviv on Friday for the funeral procession of Tsachi Idan, a hostage killed in captivity in Gaza.

The development engineer was abducted from his kibbutz of Nahal Oz during Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

He was taken to Gaza with his hands covered in the blood of his 18-year-old daughter Maayan Idan, who had been shot dead in front of him as the family hid in a safe room.

Jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan's call to disarm sparked relief but also fears for the future among Kurds in Syria and Iraq, who long for peace after fighting hard for autonomy.

In a potentially seismic shift in Kurdish history, veteran leader Ocalan sent a message this week from his Turkish prison, calling on his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to dissolve and disarm.

But the PKK, mostly based in the mountains of northern Iraq, has yet to respond, and its members have not seen their leader for decades except for a few photos from his jail cell.

Watching her granddaughter sleep in cramped quarters for displaced Palestinians, Sanaa Shraim hopes for a better life for the baby, born into a weeks-long Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces searching for suspected militants have long carried out limited incursions into Jenin refugee camp, where Shraim and about 24,000 other Palestinians normally live.

But with no end in sight to the ongoing military operation across the northern West Bank, "I worry about what will happen, when the children grow up in this reality of constant raids," said Shraim.