Campaign posters have sprung up across Damascus as Syria prepares to hold a parliamentary election in government-held areas on Monday that is designed to renew the ruling Baath party's grip on power.

It will be the fourth election to Syria's largely rubber-stamp parliament since civil war erupted in 2011. As in the previous ones, President Bashar al-Assad's Baath party, in power since 1963, is expected to secure most of the 250 seats.

"Although there are new candidates... the old ones that we're used to seeing" are still running, said Fawaz Hanna, 56.

The amount of dust in the air eased slightly in 2023, the United Nations said Friday, warning that poor environmental management was fuelling sand and dust storms.

The UN's weather and climate agency called for greater vigilance in the face of climate change, as drier surface soil leads to more dust being carried in the wind.

President Joe Biden said Thursday that US mediators were making progress in reaching a Gaza ceasefire deal as he called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

Biden, in a high-stakes, nearly hour-long news conference aimed at repudiating doubters of his reelection bid, acknowledged concerns about Israeli actions despite his overall support for the US ally.

"There's a lot of things in retrospect I wish I had been able to convince the Israelis to do, but the bottom line is we have a chance now. It's time to end this war," he said after a NATO summit in Washington.

A leading South African judge said on Thursday that "hardly anything" will deter Israel's Gaza offensive, but Pretoria's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice remains vital to highlight the dire situation.

South Africa's case brought in December 2023 alleges that Israel's Gaza offensive, launched in retaliation for an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel, breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Israel has strongly denied the accusation.

US President Joe Biden said Thursday he is "disappointed" with the problem-plagued effort to deliver aid to Gaza via a temporary pier, which American officials say will soon permanently end.

The $230-million military pier has repeatedly been detached from the shore because of weather conditions since its initial installation in mid-May. The project also faced issues with the distribution of assistance due to conditions onshore.

The Israeli military acknowledged Thursday it "failed" a kibbutz where more than 100 people died during Hamas's October 7 attacks after an internal probe found serious flaws in troops' conduct.

Kibbutz Beeri saw one of the fiercest battles of the Hamas incursion into southern Israel with hundreds of militants and troops fighting for control for nearly 24 hours.

It was also one of the most controversial, with the inhabitants complaining that the army took too long to intervene.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Thursday that Israel retain control of key Gaza territory along the border with Egypt as part of any accord to suspend the war with Hamas.

The condition conflicts with Hamas's position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

Speaking after the return of Israeli negotiators from talks with mediators in Qatar, Netanyahu said Israel needed control to stop weapons reaching Hamas from Egypt -- one of four conditions for a deal with the Palestinian militants.

Just hours after the two-week offensive on Gaza City's Shujaiya district ended, Palestinians had already found 60 bodies as they picked through the piles of concrete and dust left behind, officials in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday.

Families of missing residents and civil defence agency crews moved in for the grim search after Israel announced late Wednesday that it had ended its operation there against Hamas.

More than 60 news organizations, including some of the world's largest, signed an open letter Thursday calling on Israel to immediately end restrictions on international media entering and reporting on Gaza.

CNN, the BBC, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press were among 64 media groups demanding greater access to the enclave that has faced a withering assault by Israel since Hamas's deadly October 7 assault.

Around 60 bodies were found under the rubble of a Gaza City neighbourhood, officials in the Hamas-run territory said Thursday, after Israel's military declared an end to its operation there.

The upsurge in fighting, bombardment and displacement in the eastern district of Shujaiya came as talks were held in mediator Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal.

US President Joe Biden told reporters that his administration was "making progress" towards a ceasefire agreement as he called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.