Desperately needed relief supplies are being confiscated by the warring parties in Sudan as fighting spreads to areas previously untouched by the 10-week-old conflict between top generals, aid agencies said on Friday.

Demonstrations in support of the regular army were held Friday in greater Khartoum and in White Nile state to its south as civilians gave vent to their anger at the widespread requisition of private homes by the rival paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), witnesses said.

The Israeli army acknowledged Friday it "failed" to prevent an attack by Jewish settlers on a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, during which one villager was killed.

Revenge attacks on Turmus Ayya and other villages followed the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday, which militant group Hamas said was in response to an Israeli army raid on Jenin refugee camp which killed six Palestinians the previous day.

Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said troops had tried to prevent Israelis from attacking Turmus Ayya but they were stretched too thin.

United Nations aid transited Friday from regime-controlled northwest Syria to rebel-held areas for the first time since a devastating February earthquake, an AFP correspondent and a humanitarian official said.

The correspondent saw the 10-truck convoy reach rebel-held Al-Nayrab in Idlib province from the direction of regime-held Saraqib, headed for storage facilities near the Turkish border.

The last such convoy was in January, according to a humanitarian official in Idlib who requested anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Enormous crowds of worshippers thronged Mecca, Islam's holiest city, on Friday for the biggest hajj pilgrimage in years, with more than two million expected to brave the scorching Saudi Arabian heat.

Pilgrims in white robes and sandals packed the ancient city, now dotted with luxury hotels and air-conditioned shopping malls, after flooding in on planes, buses and trains for the annual rites.

This year's hajj -- one of the world's biggest annual religious gatherings, with a tragic history of stampedes and other disasters -- could break attendance records, officials said.

The Qatar Investment Authority is poised to buy a minority stake in the group that owns Washington franchises in the NBA, WNBA and NHL in a groundbreaking move by a sovereign wealth fund into US pro sports, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The Post was one of several US media outlets reporting that the state-owned Qatari fund was seeking to acquire a 5% stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the group headed by Ted Leonsis that owns the NBA's Washington Wizards, the WNBA's Mystics and the NHL's Capitals.

A group of Palestinian children helped sweep up rubble Thursday as their village in the occupied West Bank reeled from a near two-hour rampage carried out by Jewish settlers in revenge for a deadly shooting by two villagers.

Orif was thrown into the spotlight of rising violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after Muhanad Shehadeh, 26, and his friend Khaled Sabah, 24, attacked a petrol station outside a nearby Jewish settlement on Tuesday, killing four Israelis and seriously wounding four more.

French special envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday met with key figures in Lebanon on a "consultative" mission as he pushes for a solution to the country's protracted political deadlock.

Mired in a crippling economic crisis since 2019, Lebanon has been governed by a caretaker cabinet for more than a year and without a president for almost eight months.

No group has a clear majority in parliament and lawmakers, have failed 12 times to elect a new president, amid bitter divisions between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its opponents.

In war-torn Sudan, a Blue Nile river town has become a relative sanctuary from the fighting, but survivors living there endure overcrowding, widespread disease and creeping hunger.

One of the internally displaced people who made it to Wad Madani, a 200-kilometre (125 miles) drive southeast of the embattled capital Khartoum, was mother-of-three Fatima Mohammed.

Then, 10 days ago, she succumbed to illness, leaving behind three children -- Ithar, 11, Dalal, nine, and Ibrahim, seven -- who now largely fend for themselves in the courtyard of the Al-Jeili Salah school.

Explosions rocked Khartoum on Thursday, more than two months after fighting broke out between rival Sudanese generals, with each side accusing the other of attacks on civilians.

Witnesses in the east of the capital reported artillery fire, while others in the northern suburbs said the force of heavy shelling from an army barracks shook the walls of houses.

Air strikes again pummelled several areas of greater Khartoum.

Iran's foreign minister on Thursday concluded a three-day tour of Gulf Arab neighbours with a visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he held talks with the country's president.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's visit to the UAE followed stops in Qatar, Kuwait and Oman -- the latest in a flurry of diplomatic moves by Tehran as it seeks to reduce its isolation, improve its economy and project strength.