Yemen's Huthi rebels on Wednesday freed the crew of the merchant ship Galaxy Leader after detaining them for more than a year, citing the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas as motivation.

Weeks after the war in the Gaza Strip broke out on October 7, 2023, the Iran-backed Huthis began launching attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in what they said was support for the Palestinians.

At the start of their campaign, helicopter-borne rebels stormed the vehicle carrier Galaxy Leader and detained its 25 international crew.

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Wednesday his government had put off enforcing the country's strict Islamic dress code in order "not to put women under pressure".

Covering the neck and head and dressing modestly became mandatory for women in Iran following the Islamic revolution that overthrew the US-backed Shah in 1979.

"If you go to the streets of Tehran, you will find women not covering their hair. It's against the law, but the government has decided not to put women under pressure," Zarif told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Syria's top diplomat said Wednesday that lifting economic sanctions imposed during the rule of ousted president Bashar al-Assad was "key" to restoring stability in the war-torn country.

For weeks, Syria's new authorities have been lobbying Western powers to scrap restrictions that had targeted Assad's administration over his brutal 2011 crackdown on anti-government protests, which triggered the country's civil war.

French officials said Wednesday the body of a young man from Yemen had been found on a beach in northern France from where many migrants seek to cross the channel in small boats to England.

The body was not far from the water on the sandy beach in Sangatte outside the northern port of Calais, surrounded by about 10 police officers, an AFP photographer saw.

"It is a young man aged around 20 of Yemeni nationality," the regional prefecture told AFP.

After more than a year hiding in tunnels and dodging air strikes, uniformed Hamas fighters returned to the ruined streets of Gaza hours into a ceasefire, defying Israel's vow to crush them.

With the world watching on Sunday as Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages to the Red Cross, dozens of balaclava-wearing fighters in the group's signature green headbands were seen at the packed Gaza City square marshalling the chaotic events.

A Spanish man kidnapped by an armed group in the turbulent Algeria-Mali border area thanked the Algerian authorities on Wednesday after his rescue.

Identified as Joaquin Navarro, the Spaniard had been on a trip last week when he was kidnapped "by an armed group made up of five people", according to the Algerian authorities.

Late on Tuesday, Algerian national television broadcast his arrival at a military airport near the capital aboard a military jet flown from Algeria's southernmost commune of Tin Zaouatine.

Syria's defence minister said Wednesday that Damascus was open to talks with Kurdish-led forces on their integration into the national army but stood ready to use force should negotiations fail.

"The door to negotiation with the (Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces) is currently open," Murhaf Abu Qasra told reporters.

"If we have to use force, we will be ready."

Gunfire and explosions rocked the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, an AFP journalist reported, as the Israeli military kept up a large-scale raid for a second day.

The operation, launched just days after a ceasefire paused more than a year of fighting in Gaza, has left at least 10 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israeli officials have said the raid is part of a broader campaign against militants in the West Bank, citing thousands of attack attempts since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023.

Former Syrian detainee Mohammed Najib has suffered for years from torture-induced back pain. Yet he dreaded being taken by his jailers to a military hospital, where he received beatings instead of treatment.

The prison guards forbade him from revealing his condition, only sending him to hospital for his likely tuberculosis symptoms -- widespread in the notorious Saydnaya prison where he was detained.

Doctors at Tishreen Hospital, the largest military health facility in Damascus, never inquired about the hunch on his back -- the result of sustained abuse.

Sudan's army-aligned government has issued new banknotes in areas it controls, reportedly aimed at undermining its paramilitary rivals but causing long queues at banks, disrupting trade and entrenching division.

In a country already grappling with war and famine, the swap replaced 500 and 1,000 Sudanese pound banknotes (worth around $0.25 and $0.50 respectively) with new ones in seven states.

The government justified the move as necessary to "protect the national economy and combat criminal counterfeiters".

But for many Sudanese it just caused problems.