Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani has made a third and final offer to buy Manchester United, sources told AFP on Friday.

Sheikh Jassim is in a bidding war with British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe after the pair emerged as the main contenders to buy the Premier League club from the Glazer family.

Ratcliffe is also reported to have made another offer for United ahead of Friday's deadline for the third round of bidding.

Palestinians embraced at the Egyptian border with the blockaded Gaza Strip on Friday as students returned home after fleeing the eruption of violence in Sudan.

Gaza's Crossing and Border Authority said "172 students arrived in the homeland through the Rafah border crossing, as the first batch of students coming from Sudan."

There were hugs and tears at the southern gateway to Gaza as relatives greeted young Palestinians fleeing fighting which broke out on April 15.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Damascus "in the near future", on the first such trip to Syria since the country's civil war began, Iran's foreign minister said on Friday.

Syria's pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported that Raisi would visit Damascus on Wednesday.

"We have drawn up a programme... for a visit" by Raisi to Syria, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told a press conference at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, adding that the trip would be "in the near future".

A Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike for more than 80 days is being held in "difficult" conditions, his wife told AFP Friday after an advocacy group warned his health is deteriorating.

Khader Adnan, 45, a leading figure in the Islamic Jihad militant group in the north of the occupied West Bank, was arrested by Israeli forces at his home near the city of Jenin on February 5, according to the faction.

He is being held under administrative detention -- a controversial Israeli measure under which people are interned without charge.

Emirati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi stepped out of the International Space Station (ISS) Friday for the first space walk by an Arab astronaut, a moment touted by the UAE as a "milestone".

Alneyadi, 41, dubbed the "Sultan of Space" by his alma mater, become the first Arab astronaut to embark on a six-month space mission when he blasted off for the ISS in early March aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

A US-bound oil tanker seized by Iranian commandos had 24 Indian crew on board, its operator told AFP on Friday, adding it was working to secure their release.

Footage aired by Iranian state television showed navy commandos dropping down from a helicopter onto the deck of the Advantage Sweet which Tehran said it seized Thursday after an alleged collision with one of its vessels off the coast of Oman.

Past experience shows that crew caught up in similar incidents are in "no danger", the ship's operator, Advantage Tankers told AFP.

Heavy fighting raged on in Sudan Friday with warring generals trading blame, despite their agreement to extend a truce aimed at stemming nearly two weeks of warfare that has killed hundreds and caused widespread destruction.

Black clouds rose over the capital Khartoum in fresh fighting and the United Nations reported bitter urban battles in the war-ravaged Darfur region where scores were reported dead.

Samer and his family thought they had found safety in Lebanon after fleeing Syria's war nearly a decade ago, but amid growing anti-refugee sentiment, Beirut handed his brother to the Syrian army.

Syrians poured into Lebanon after civil war broke out in 2011, with Damascus's brutal suppression of peaceful protests. With the regime now back in control of most of the country, calls have intensified in crisis-hit Lebanon for Syrians to go home.

Israel's ruling right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mobilised thousands of people to march in Jerusalem on Thursday in support of controversial judicial reforms that critics condemn as un-democratic.

Waving Israeli flags, large crowds gathered in front of parliament, chanting that "the people demand judicial reform".

The government's proposals would curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.

More than 200 exhausted Iraqis evacuated from Sudan flew back to Baghdad on Thursday, with one saying he hadn't seen the sun in 10 days because of the fighting.

Among the 234 people who were flown to Baghdad International Airport from Port Sudan were 16 Syrians, the foreign ministry said.

It was unclear whether they would stay in Iraq or return home.

"Overnight the war happened," said 30-year-old Iraqi engineer Ahmed al-Baldawi, his eyes red with fatigue.

"There was no food, no water and no electricity. For 10 days we didn't see the sun."