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.

Khader Adnan was no stranger to Israel's prisons. His Tuesday death came during his 13th stint in Israeli custody, with nearly eight years of his life spent behind bars.

Born in the town of Arraba, near Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank in 1978, Adnan, become involved with Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad while studying mathematics at Birzeit University in the late 1990s.

Warring generals in Sudan have agreed "in principle" to a seven-day ceasefire, the government of neighbouring South Sudan said Tuesday, after regional envoys denounced repeated violations of previous truces.

Diplomatic efforts have intensified to end more than two weeks of war in Africa's third-largest country as warnings multiply about a "catastrophic" humanitarian crisis.

More than 430,000 people have already been forced to flee their homes, the United Nations said.

The Israeli military conducted air strikes and traded fire with Gaza militants on Tuesday in a flare-up of violence following the death in Israeli custody of a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike.

The army said it hit Gaza with "tank fire" in response to rockets from the Palestinian enclave, sparking a renewed volley from Gaza witnessed by AFP journalists.

Israel has undergone major societal transformations during its 75 years of existence, which have left the nation confronting deepening divisions.

The northern Yiron kibbutz highlights how the country has evolved since its creation on May 14, 1948, as the socialist ideals of some of the founding fathers have given way to greater economic liberalism, and a more multicultural society.

From her modest home in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Amina al-Dabai remembers the very different world in which she grew up more than seven decades ago.

Born in 1934, Dabai was still only a child when Israel was created on May 14, 1948.

Now she is one of 5.9 million Palestinian refugees living in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria according to the United Nations.

They are descendants of more than 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes 75 years ago.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Amman to discuss Syria's long-running conflict agreed Monday the return of Syrian refugees was a "top priority", according to a communique released after the talks.

The talks in Jordan's capital brought together foreign ministers from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt, in the latest regional engagement with the long isolated government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey released new details Monday about its successful operation against the Islamic State's global chief, saying he died by setting off a suicide vest to avoid being detained.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday the death of the "suspected leader of Daesh, codename Abu Hussein al-Qurashi".

Turkey's Anadolu state news agency gave his full name as Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi, saying he joined IS in 2013 and quickly rose through the jihadist group's ranks.

Tunisia's largest union on Monday attacked the government's handling of negotiations with the IMF on a loan to bail out the North African country as it slides deeper into debt.

Tunisia is seeking a bailout package worth nearly $2 billion from the International Monetary Fund, which conditions any aid on a series of reforms.

As Noureddine Taboubi of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) was giving his May Day speech in the capital Tunis, protesters in the country's second city Sfax denounced "an IMF government", saying "No to colonisation".

Representatives of nearly two dozen countries and international institutions met Monday in Qatar for talks on Afghanistan focusing on women's rights under the Taliban administration, the United Nations said.

The Taliban authorities are absent from the closed-door two-day meeting, and UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said recognition of their rule "is not up for discussion".