Israeli strikes killed eight soldiers in southern Syria on Wednesday, later returning to bomb Aleppo airport for the fourth time in a fortnight, the defence ministry in Damascus said.
Israel said the first strike was in response to earlier rocket fire.
Hours later, Israeli forces struck Aleppo airport in the north, the Syrian defence ministry said as regional tensions simmer over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed across the occupied West Bank since war erupted between Israel and Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas on October 7, the health ministry said Wednesday.
Violence had already spiralled in the West Bank before the Gaza war, with the highest death toll in the Palestinian territory since at least 2005.
Many of the Palestinian deaths came in raids by Israeli troops but there has also been a rise in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers, with civilians and fighters killed on both sides.
A worried Iraqi father points at a blister on the face of his one-year-old daughter, the result of a parasitic infection carried by sandflies in her remote village.
"It's a skin disease, the 'Baghdad boil'," Najeh Farhan said of the pustule on Tiba's mouth as the toddler played with a pacifier at their home in the drought-hit province of Al-Diwaniyah.
Like countless other children in Iraq -- a country battling the effects of war, entrenched poverty, water stress and a heating planet -- Tiba is sick but has no access to good health care.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States has sought to isolate Moscow and pressure China to keep its distance. With war in the Middle East, Russia and China are seeking to turn the tables.
The United States has cast Russia as the disruptor of the international order at the Security Council, with President Joe Biden promising the world body that Washington would use its veto only sparingly.
But the United States went ahead and vetoed a draft resolution last week it deemed insufficiently supportive of its ally.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is treading a tightrope on Israel, with Washington firmly backing its ally while urging caution and calling for pauses in the fighting to get aid into Gaza.
The 80-year-old has had to balance uncompromising support for Israel's right to defend itself since the October 7 Hamas attacks with concern over the plight of civilians in Gaza and the risks of a wider war.
French President Emmanuel Macron evoked an international coalition along the lines of the one that defeated Islamic State (IS) extremists in Iraq and Syria to fight Palestinian militant group Hamas but such an idea will struggle to even get off the ground, experts say.
Macron floated the proposal during a visit to Israel Tuesday, as a conflict rages between Israel and Hamas that has seen thousands of civilians killed on both sides.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati reaffirmed on Tuesday Beirut's commitment to a UN resolution that ended a 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, amid border tensions as Israel fights Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Hamas fighters stormed into Israel from the blockaded Gaza Strip on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities, and taking more than 200 others hostage.
Israel's retaliatory bombing campaign has killed more than 5,700 in Gaza, mainly Palestinian civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
After 16 days of mobilising and massing near the Gaza Strip, an eerie calm lingers among Israeli troops as they await the highly anticipated invasion of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.
The parched desert floor is now filled with hundreds of armoured vehicles along with columns of tanks primed for the expected onslaught.
The mechanised steel is adorned with the blue and white Israeli flags, while soldiers labour away with the everyday maintenance of their vehicles.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday alleged violations of international law in Gaza and urged an immediate ceasefire as Israel pounds the Palestinian territory in response to Hamas attacks, with the crisis deeply dividing the Security Council.
Israel voiced anger over the UN chief's plea before a high-level session of the Security Council, where the Palestinian foreign minister in turn denounced what he described as inaction in the conflict that has killed thousands on both sides, mostly civilians.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday warned Iran that the United States would respond "decisively" to any attack by its proxies, as tensions rise with the Israel-Hamas war.
"The United States does not seek conflict with Iran. We do not want this war to widen. But if Iran or its proxies attack US personnel anywhere, make no mistake. We will defend our people, we will defend our security -- swiftly and decisively," Blinken told a UN Security Council session.
