A second Syrian police officer has died following a car bombing at a Damascus police station, the interior ministry said Thursday, a day after the blast that was claimed by Islamic State group jihadists.

The ministry said Wednesday that a vehicle exploded at the Barzeh police station in the north of the capital, killing a lieutenant colonel and wounding four others, adding that an investigation was ongoing.

On Thursday it said that a second policeman had died, with his body transferred to the police hospital in Damascus.

The UN rights chief Thursday called on the international community to exert all possible pressure on the fighting sides in Sudan to resolve the conflict and end "the wanton violence".

The fighting has plunged "this much-suffering country into catastrophe", United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

Addressing a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Sudan, he urged "all states with influence in the region to encourage, by all possible means, the resolution of this crisis".

Israel and Gaza militants traded heavy fire Thursday, the third day of the worst escalation of violence in months, which has killed 29 people in the blockaded Palestinian enclave and one in Israel.

Air strikes by the Israeli army since Tuesday have killed fighters as well as civilians, including several children, said officials in the crowded coastal territory.

Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip killed one person in the central Israeli city of Rehovot and injured at least two others, Israeli police said. Three others sustained shrapnel injuries elsewhere in Israel.

As Turkey's presidential vote nears, Iraqi Kurds are keeping a close watch on the tightest electoral battle yet for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the outcome of which could have major security and economic implications for their region.

For many years, fighting between Turkey's armed forces and Kurdish militants has spilled over into Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north, a rugged mountain region where both sides operate military bases.

Iranian captain Hassan Rostam has braved the Strait of Hormuz aboard his lenj for four decades, but now watches with despair as the wooden ships are being replaced by cheaper, faster boats.

The sturdy vessels, built by hand, have sailed Gulf waters for centuries, their potbellied silhouette emblematic of regional maritime traditions like the dhows of the Arabian Peninsula.

But these days, "there are fewer and fewer" of them, said Rostam, 62, who has spent his life travelling the waterway between Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Schalke head to league leaders Bayern Munich on Saturday in the midst of an extraordinary relegation escape act, with more than a little help from centre-back and captain Maya Yoshida.

Made captain early in 2023 with Schalke dead last in the Bundesliga, the 34-year-old Yoshida has been pivotal to the team's surprise resurgence.

Schalke now sit in 15th, one place and two points clear of the relegation spots, with three games remaining.

Fighting raged in the Sudanese capital and a city to the south Wednesday, residents said, pushing more people to undertake dangerous journeys to safety across the country's borders.

Those unable to escape grapple with shortages of food and other essentials, surviving only thanks to Sudanese charity networks among friends and neighbours, as the United States expressed cautious optimism over talks to secure the safe delivery of aid.

A year after an Israeli bullet killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, her West Bank office remains almost untouched, but mourners' flowers have piled up in an adjacent room.

The Ramallah street where the news bureau is located has been renamed after her, and a new museum will soon honour her work and that of other reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fellow journalists say they still have not accepted the loss of Abu Akleh, 51, whose many years of fearless reporting had made her a household name across the Arab world.

A "perfect storm" of overlapping crises forced tens of millions to flee within their own country last year, sending the number of internally displaced people to a record high, monitors said on Thursday.

An unprecedented 71.1 million internally displaced people (IDPs) were registered in 2022 -- up 20 percent from a year earlier -- amid mass displacement for Russia's war in Ukraine, as well as by the monsoon floods that drenched Pakistan.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received an invitation to next week's Arab summit in Saudi Arabia, the presidency said Wednesday, the first since his country's war began over a decade ago.

The pan-Arab body had suspended Damascus in November 2011 over its crackdown on protests which spiralled into a conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

On Sunday, the Arab League welcomed back Syria's government, securing Assad's return to the Arab fold after years of isolation.