Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad announced a truce around Gaza Wednesday, after militants traded fire with Israel following the death in Israeli custody of a hunger striker from its ranks.

Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations intervened to broker a return to calm from 4 am (0100 GMT), sources in Islamic Jihad and fellow militant group Hamas told AFP.

Israel did not immediately confirm the agreement.

The Israeli army said the last warning sirens sounded near the Gaza border at around 5:30 am (0230 GMT).

In Lebanon's impoverished Palestinian refugee camps, young people say they dream of leaving a struggling country where their families took refuge generations ago and where their futures remain bleak.

Nirmeen Hazineh is a descendant of survivors of what Palestinians call the Nakba -- the "catastrophe" -- when more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by the 1948 war over Israel's creation.

Now 75 years old, Israel models itself as an economic success story, a leader in business, agriculture and advanced technologies -- despite glaring inequalities that have left many Israelis behind.

The country readily describes itself as a "start-up nation", and its per capita GDP is higher than that of Germany, France or Britain.

But "there is the start-up nation and the soup kitchen nation," says Gilles Darmon, the head of Latet, an Israeli non-profit group working to fight poverty and deliver food aid.

Visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday hailed Syria's Bashar al-Assad for overcoming sanctions and achieving "victory" in the country's 12-year-long civil war, in which Tehran has been a major ally.

The Syria conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry. While the front lines have mostly quietened in recent years, large parts of the country's north remain outside government control.

Child marriages are declining -- but at a rate that would not eliminate the practice for another 300 years, while a perfect storm of crises could yet reverse the trend, the United Nations childrens' agency said Tuesday.

"We definitely have made progress in the abandonment of the practice of child marriage, particularly in the last 10 years. Unfortunately, this progress was not enough," Claudia Cappa, lead author of the UNICEF report published Tuesday, told AFP.

Press freedom is under attack in every corner of the globe, with journalists continually harassed, jailed and killed, UN officials and media outlets warned Tuesday.

Speaking ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a rallying cry for journalists and media worldwide.

"All our freedom depends on press freedom," he said in a video message, calling it the "foundation of democracy and justice" and the "lifeblood of human rights."

The UAE's Emirates airline does not feel threatened by ambitious expansion plans in neighbouring Saudi Arabia and welcomes increased competition, its president said on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia has announced a new national carrier, Riyadh Air, and a big new airport in the capital to handle up to 120 million travellers per year.

But Emirates president Tim Clark, who put the cost of the plans at $2.5-3 trillion, said there was a long way to go for Saudi airlines and other competitors, including Air India which ordered 470 Airbus and Boeing planes in February.

UN chief Antonio Guterres made a new attack on the Taliban government's "unprecedented" curbs on Afghan women's rights Tuesday as he highlighted international fears over stability in the crisis-stricken state.

The United Nations is reviewing its Afghan operations after the Taliban authorities banned women working for aid agencies, but Guterres said leading powers at a two-day meeting in Doha wanted new efforts to try to change its policies.

The review will only be completed on Friday and the UN has said it faces an "appalling choice" over whether to stay in Afghanistan.

As fighting raged in Sudan's capital, Ayman Abu Arki and his uncle Hossam went out "to go buy some water" for the family, but then stopped answering their phones.

Their panicked family, desperate for news, kept dialling their numbers but then turned to social media, as many others have done to search for those missing amid the bloody chaos.

The numbing response finally came back from a Facebook user: a photo showed two lifeless bodies inside a bullet-riddled car, the licence plate matching that of the family vehicle.

The HMS Al Diriyah, a 102-metre-long Saudi warship, is typically used to escort oil tankers through the Red Sea and in training exercises with Western naval powers.

But this week the vessel carried out a different kind of mission: transporting shell-shocked civilians from conflict-hit Sudan to safety on Saudi soil.

It was part of a broader evacuation effort that has given Saudi Arabia a central role in Sudan's crisis, putting the Gulf kingdom's regional clout on display for a global audience.