Grieving families kept a solemn vigil in the terminal of an Indian airport on Friday as the bodies of dozens of migrant workers killed in a Kuwait building fire returned home.

Wednesday's dawn blaze quickly engulfed a housing block home to foreign labourers servicing the oil-rich gulf state's economy.

Fifty people died in the resulting inferno, 45 of them Indians, with dozens more hospitalised and anguished relatives back home frantically chasing news of whether their loved ones had perished.

When Iranians worry about life's big questions, many seek answers in the works and wisdoms of Persia's most revered poet, Hafez -- sometimes with the help of a parakeet.

Retired housewife Mitra, 61, had questions about whether her son married the right woman, so she went to the tomb of Iran's beloved 14th-century bard in the southern city of Shiraz.

Seeking guidance, she visited a fortune-teller there, one of many who offer advice with the help of Hafez's collected works, a book of odes known as the Divan.

More than one million Muslim pilgrims packed a giant tented city near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on Friday for a hajj pilgrimage held in sweltering heat and against the grim backdrop of the Gaza war.

Robed worshippers arrived on buses or on foot, many shaded by umbrellas, at the vast encampment in Mina after performing the "tawaf" -- walking seven times around the Kaaba, the giant black cube at Mecca's Grand Mosque.

At weddings, football matches and other special events, some Iraqi men like to fire salvos of celebratory gunfire into the sky, worrying little about where the bullets might fall.

For some Iraqis, the tradition has been devastating, as have random bullets from sporadic gun battles in a society still awash with weapons after decades of war and turmoil.

Baghdad mother Randa Ahmad was busy with chores when a loud bang startled her. Alarmed, she hurried to the living room to find her four-year-old son Mohamed bleeding on the floor.

Palestinian officials said Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in a raid in a town in the occupied West Bank Thursday, as Israel's military reported it had "eliminated two wanted suspects".

The raid took place in the town of Qabatiyah near the city of Jenin, said Jenin governor Kamal Abu al-Rub who confirmed the "deaths of two martyrs".

The Palestinian Red Crescent said a third Palestinian was also killed in the raid. The Ramallah-based health ministry identified him as 21-year-old Qais Muhammad Zakarneh.

Kuwaiti authorities said Thursday three people had been detained for suspected manslaughter over a building fire that killed 50 foreign workers, mostly Indians, and plunged relatives and friends into mourning.

Three Filipinos were also among the dead, officials in Manila said, after the fire sent black smoke billowing through the six-storey structure south of Kuwait City and injured dozens more.

Most of oil-rich Kuwait's population of more than four million is made up of foreigners, many of them from South and Southeast Asia working in construction and service industries.

Two cruise missiles launched by Yemen's Huthi rebels struck a bulk cargo carrier in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, severely injuring a sailor who was evacuated by American forces, the US military said.

The Huthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023 in attacks they say are in solidarity with Palestinians during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Although this has caused major disruption to international shipping, casualties have been rare.

Some Gazans have criticised the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the besieged and conflict-ravaged Palestinian territory, for failing to end the war with Israel that has devastated their lives.

Hamas has "led the Palestinian people into a war of annihilation", said Umm Ala, 67, who has been displaced twice during more than eight months of war between Hamas-led Palestinian militants and Israel.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group said it had fired waves of rockets and drones at the Israeli army on Thursday after an Israeli strike killed one of its senior commanders.

The major attack comes after months of near-daily cross-border fire between the group and the Israeli military since Hezbollah ally Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

From misting systems to heat-reflective road coverings, Saudi officials are trying to aid hajj pilgrims in coping with heat, but scientists caution that climate change may outpace these efforts.

The annual pilgrimage, one of the world's largest religious gatherings, coincides again this year with the hot Saudi summer, with officials predicting average highs of 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).

Travelling to Mecca from Chicago in the United States, Shariq Memon prepared for the worst, though he told AFP conditions had been manageable so far.