By taking one of the first direct pilgrimage flights between Syria and Saudi Arabia in over a decade, Osama Kabbara realised two dreams: performing hajj and reuniting with his son.

"For me, it's a double joy," said the emotional 70-year-old, who had not seen Maher, his eldest son, since 2015.

One of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia must be performed by all Muslims with the means to do so at least once in their lives.

But for Syrians living in government-controlled areas, it has long been out of reach.

In tents in the stifling heat and in bombed-out mosques, Gazans marked Sunday the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, devoid of the usual cheer as the Israel-Hamas war raged on.

"There is no joy. We have been robbed of it," said Malakiya Salman, a 57-year-old displaced woman, now living in a tent in Khan Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gazans, like Muslims the world over, would usually slaughter sheep for the holiday -- whose Arabic name means "feast of the sacrifice" -- and share the meat with the needy.

Gaza saw its first day of relative calm in months Sunday, after Israel's military said it would "pause" fighting daily around a southern route to facilitate aid flows, following repeated UN warnings of famine in the Palestinian territory.

"Compared with the previous days, today, the first day of Eid al-Adha, is considered near calm and the calm has prevailed across all of Gaza," Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the civil defence agency in Hamas-ruled Gaza, told AFP.

Pilgrims on Sunday performed the last major ritual of the hajj, the "stoning of the devil", in western Saudi Arabia as Muslims around the globe celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday.

As one of the world's largest annual religious gatherings wound down, authorities from multiple countries said at least 22 people had died, many of them from "extreme heat", highlighting the acute physical toll of the annual rites which in recent years have fallen during the oven-like Saudi summer.

Palestinian teenagers bounced on trampolines and jumped through hoops inside a towering tent on the outskirts of Ramallah, the financial hub of the occupied West Bank.

But the circus students weren't the only ones bending over backwards in the pavilion: the school's director faced financial hurdles to buy the tent from Europe and trampolines from Asia.

"We are suffering with international payments," said Mohamad Rabah, head of the Palestinian Circus School, describing a bureaucratic process that could delay equipment delivery by up to a month.

An exiled Iranian opposition group and activists on Saturday slammed as shameful Sweden's freeing in an apparent swap for two Swedes of a former Iranian official jailed over his role in the mass executions of dissidents in 1988.

Hamid Noury, a former Iranian prison official, had been convicted and jailed in Sweden under the principle of universal jurisdiction which allows states to try crimes carried out in other countries. It remains the only such case concerning atrocities in Iran.

France said Thursday one of its citizens detained in Iran has been released, leaving at least over half a dozen European passport holders still held in the country.

Olivier Grondeau, 34, detained since October 2022 on security charges, arrived in France on Monday after an almost 900-day ordeal, the Elysee Palace and a diplomatic source told AFP.

Human rights groups say those still in custody are being kept by Iran for use as bargaining chips in negotiations with foreign governments.

Hezbollah kept up retaliatory attacks on Israel Saturday, days after a strike killed one of its commanders, while a Palestinian group said one of its fighters was killed in south Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have traded near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel which triggered war in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah commander Taleb Abdallah was killed in an Israeli strike in the village of Jouaiyya on Tuesday, with the Israeli army describing him as "one of Hezbollah's most senior commanders in southern Lebanon".

Iran and Sweden announced a prisoner exchange on Saturday in which a former Iranian official was released in Sweden in exchange for a European Union diplomat and a second Swede.

Hamid Noury, a 63-year-old Iranian former prisons official serving a life sentence in Sweden, landed at Tehran's Mehrabad airport at around 5:30 pm (1400 GMT) where he was welcomed by family members and officials, state television footage showed.

Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a blast in southern Gaza Saturday, the military said, in one of its heaviest losses of the war, as witnesses reported street battles between troops and Palestinian militants.

The military said the soldiers were killed when the Namer armoured vehicle they were travelling in exploded near Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, where troops are engaged in fierce street battles.

"There was a very serious damage to the vehicle and those in it, and a large explosion making it difficult to identify and locate the bodies," it said.