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.

Israeli forces on Thursday demolished the home of a Palestinian accused of killing a soldier in the occupied West Bank, which has been hit by a new outbreak of violence.

This week, at least 18 people have been killed in the territory, in incursions by the Israeli military, or in attacks by Palestinians or Jewish settlers.

So far this year, more than 200 people have died in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the vast majority of them Palestinians.

Iran's top diplomat arrived in Kuwait Wednesday, the third leg of a Gulf tour that saw him hold "constructive" talks with his Omani counterpart in Muscat earlier in the day.

It came a day after Tehran held discussions in Doha on its nuclear programme with Qatari and European Union officials, the latest in a flurry of diplomatic moves by the Islamic republic as it seeks to reduce its isolation, improve its economy and project strength.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's tour of the Gulf will see the Iranian foreign minister also making a stop in the United Arab Emirates.

Israel's military on Wednesday killed three members of a "terrorist cell" in a rare West Bank drone strike, the army said, as violence there escalates with at least 13 Palestinians and four Israelis dead this week.

The army announced the strike after a Palestinian man was killed earlier Wednesday in an occupied West Bank village attacked by hundreds of Israelis.

After a spate of arrests and executions for drug offences, Ibrahim, a dealer in Saudi Arabia, is not taking any chances.

"I don't deal with new clients or go to the clients myself," said the 37-year-old, using a pseudonym to protect his identity.

"They have to take on the risk," he told AFP from the Red Sea city of Jeddah, weeks after several of his customers were arrested.

Ibrahim is on the front lines of a war on drugs in Saudi Arabia, which has seen an influx of the addictive amphetamine captagon flooding in from war-torn Syria and Lebanon.

The Sudanese capital was again under fire Wednesday, after the latest breached ceasefire between warring generals ended without any sign of an end to more than two months of war.

An immense fire had already engulfed the intelligence service's headquarters in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday evening, with each side accusing the other of attacking it in violation of the 72-hour truce mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia.