A war monitor said Israeli strikes in and around Damascus on Thursday killed 20 people including Palestinian militants and Iran-backed fighters, as attacks intensify during the Lebanon war.
The attacks coincided with an official visit to Damascus by Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Human rights campaigners on Thursday paid tribute to an Iranian activist who killed himself hours after warning he would do so if four inmates seen to be political prisoners were not freed.
Kianoosh Sanjari, an opponent of the Islamic republic's clerical authorities, warned in a message on X late Wednesday that he would commit suicide if the release of the two men and two women did not take place.
He then took his own life, according to multiple rights campaigners and organisations.
Air strikes hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Thursday after an Israeli warning to evacuate parts of the Hezbollah bastion, AFPTV images showed.
A plume of grey smoke rose over the area after the latest strike since Israel sharply intensified its campaign against the Iran-backed militant group in September.
Shortly before the strike, Israel had issued a warning to residents to evacuate their homes.
Israel and France played out a goalless draw in a Nations League football match in Paris on Thursday surrounded by a huge security operation.
Around 4,000 police and members of the security forces patrolled inside and outside the Stade de France to prevent a repetition of the attacks on fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last week.
A further 1,600 civilian security personnel were also on duty.
Stewards had to intervene at one point to stop fans of both nations from clashing in the stands, an AFP reporter saw.
Israel suffered one of the deadliest days of its ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Wednesday when six of its soldiers were killed in combat near the border.
The soldiers "fell during combat in southern Lebanon", the army said in a statement. Their deaths mean 47 Israeli troops have been killed in combat with Hezbollah since September 30, when Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon.
The army's announcement came after new Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said there would be no easing up in the war against Hezbollah.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the visiting head of the UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday that his government was willing to resolve doubts about its atomic programme, ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump's arrival in office.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said achieving "results" in nuclear talks with Iran was vital to avoid a new conflict in the region already inflamed by Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A CIA official has been charged in connection with a leak of classified US intelligence documents about Israel's plans for a retaliatory strike on Iran, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Asif Rahman, who worked abroad for the Central Intelligence Agency, was arrested in Cambodia by the FBI and was to appear in a federal court in Guam on Thursday, the newspaper said.
It said Rahman, who held a top secret security clearance, was indicted in Virginia last week with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national intelligence information.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday that Israel's repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the "war crime of forcible transfer", and to "ethnic cleansing" in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that Israeli officials are... committing the war crime of forcible transfer," the report said.
"Israel's actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing" in the areas where Palestinians will not be able to return, HRW added.
Sudan has seen a surge in extreme violence in recent weeks as the warring military and paramilitary push for a decisive victory, with no political solution in sight.
Fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intensified since late October, with reports of attacks on civilians including sexual violence against women and girls raising alarm.
The war that erupted in April 2023 has created what the UN calls the world's worst displacement crises, with more than 11 million people forced from their homes.
Iran hanged a 26-year-old man for a second time Wednesday months after a previous execution was halted half a minute in, an NGO said.
Ahmad Alizadeh was arrested in October 2018 on a murder charge, which he denied, and was sentenced to death, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), which tracks executions in Iran, said in a statement.
