Wearing a sticker on her shirt that read "328" -- the number of days her son has been held hostage -- Rachel Goldberg-Polin went near the Israel-Gaza border on Thursday to deliver a message.

"Hersh! It's Mom... I pray to God he brings you back. Right now. I love you, stay strong, survive," she yelled into a microphone in hopes the 23-year-old Israeli-American might hear her.

She was joined by dozens of other relatives of hostages who are still held in the Gaza Strip nearly 11 months since Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel triggered the ongoing war.

At least 24 people have been killed in flash floods in western Yemen, a United Nations agency said on Thursday, as search efforts continued for those still missing.

Landslides triggered by torrential rains crashed through homes and businesses in Al-Mahwit province's Melhan district on Tuesday night burying some of their occupants.

The United Nations Population Fund in Yemen said on social media platform X that there were 24 dead and 17 missing in "devastating floods after rains and three dams burst" in the area controlled by the Huthi rebels.

The death toll from a three-day Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank rose to 20 on Friday, Israel and the Palestinian health ministry said, while violence raged on in the Gaza Strip.

It came as US-based aid group Anera said an Israeli strike killed four Palestinians accompanying its convoy on Thursday. The Israeli military reported it had struck armed assailants.

The UN's World Food Programme on Wednesday said it had suspended aid operations after one of its vehicles was hit by an Israeli strike.

Israel's military said troops killed a Palestinian militant leader and six others on Thursday, the second day of large-scale "counter-terrorism" operations in the occupied West Bank.

A military spokesman gave an overall death toll of 16 Palestinian militants since Israeli forces launched coordinated raids across the northern West Bank on Wednesday. The Palestinian health ministry reported at least 15 dead.

Iranian authorities on Wednesday indicted a leading woman filmmaker and her actress daughter with violating the Islamic dress code by appearing in public without the veil, the judiciary said.

"The Tehran prosecutor charged filmmaker Rakhshan Banietemad and her daughter, the actress Baran Kosari, after they removed their hijab in public," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

Banietemad, 70, is one of Iran first female screenwriters and film directors and has received several awards at the Tehran Fajr film festival, the country's largest.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday it had "failed" in its response to a settler attack in the occupied West Bank earlier this month that Palestinian officials said killed one man.

The August 15 raid on the northern West Bank village of Jit came amid soaring violence in the Palestinian territory during the Gaza war and growing international concern over an uptick in attacks by Jewish settlers.

The United States on Wednesday announced new sanctions on West Bank settlers over violence against Palestinians, urging greater accountability efforts by its ally Israel, which responded with anger to the move.

The sanctions were announced on the same day that Israel launched a wide-scale attack on the West Bank that it said killed nine Palestinian fighters, despite warnings by President Joe Biden's administration against expanding the war in Gaza.

The remains of an Israeli soldier killed in Hamas's October 7 attack that triggered the Gaza war have been recovered and returned to his family, the Israeli army said Wednesday.

In an overnight operation "a fallen (Israel Defense Forces) soldier who was abducted on October 7th and held hostage in the Gaza Strip was rescued and returned to the State of Israel", an army statement said.

"At the request of his family, his name will not be published. We send our deepest condolences to the family and will continue to accompany them."

Israel launched a large-scale operation Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, where the military said it killed Palestinian fighters, as the nearly 11-month-old Gaza war showed no signs of abating.

The military said its forces killed nine militants while the Palestinian health ministry reported 11 deaths in the West Bank, where violence has surged during the war sparked by Gaza rulers Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.

A clinic in western Yemen has been inundated with suspected cholera patients after heavy rains and flooding sparked fears of a major outbreak in the impoverished and war-ravaged country.

With hundreds of suspected cases overwhelming the facility in Hais, medical staff are stretched to the limit as they battle the outbreak in a region already hit by nearly a decade of war.

Women and children lie attached to intravenous drips to combat diarrhoea, a symptom of what medics fear is cholera.