Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pledged to crack down on human traffickers Thursday, after leading her cabinet on a visit near the site of a migrant shipwreck that claimed at least 72 lives.

As protestors accused her right-wing government of risking lives with its hard line on migration, Meloni shifted the focus from those taking leaky boats across the Mediterranean to those who exploit them.

She said her ministers had agreed a decree that would hand up to 30 years in prison to traffickers who cause migrant deaths or serious injury.

The United Nations on Wednesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to "immediately" end violence as intra-Palestinian tensions erupted following a deadly Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank city of Nablus fired tear gas at mourners attending the funeral of a Hamas militant killed in Tuesday's raid, amid a surge in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We are in the midst of a cycle of violence that must be stopped immediately," UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland said in a statement.

Leading media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday urged Iran to release a journalist arrested after closely covering a spate of mystery poisonings of schoolgirls, saying the detention appeared to be an attempt to silence him.

The spate of poisonings has affected over 5,000 pupils, mainly girls, since November, according to the authorities.

Seven people including several civilians were killed Wednesday when a drone strike targeted a weapons factory belonging to Iran-backed factions in government-held eastern Syria, a war monitor said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the strike in Deir Ezzor province, where Iran-backed factions hold sway and where a US-led coalition and Israel have previously carried out attacks.

Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank fired tear gas Wednesday as mourners attending the funeral of a Hamas militant killed by Israeli forces chanted slogans against the Palestinian Authority.

Hundreds marched through the streets of the northern West Bank city of Nablus for the funeral of Hamas fighter Abdel Fatah Hussein Khroushah, 49, killed a day earlier along with five other Palestinians during intense fighting in an Israeli raid in Jenin.

A train crash in Egypt killed four people and injured more than 20, officials said Wednesday about the latest in a series of deadly accidents blamed on ageing infrastructure and mismanagement.

The train overshot the station and ran into the buffers at the end of the track after passing through a stop signal, in the Nile Delta city of Qalyub north of Cairo, the National Railways Authority said.

"That led to the derailment of the locomotive and the first carriage," it added in a statement.

At a Syrian market, bags are brimming with desert truffles, a seasonal delicacy that people risk their lives to collect, braving Islamic State group attacks and landmines.

"It's a treat dipped in blood," said vendor Mohammed Salha, 31, showing off truffles he spent a week collecting near his village in the central province of Hama.

"Every day I leave my house not knowing whether I will come back to my wife and daughter," he said, a brown keffiyeh scarf wrapped around his head.

Iran has jailed for six and a half years on national security charges an Irish-French citizen held since October, his family said, adding that health problems meant his life was in danger.

Bernard Phelan, a Paris-based travel consultant, was arrested in October in the northeastern city of Mashhad and has been held ever since.

He is one of some two dozen foreigners jailed in Iran who campaigners see as hostages held to extract concessions from the West.

Four people were killed and 23 injured when a passenger train slammed into the buffers at a station north of Cairo, the Egyptian health ministry said in an update Wednesday.

Tuesday's crash in the city of Qalyub was the latest in a spate of deadly accidents on Egypt's rail network that have mostly been blamed on ageing infrastructure and poor maintenance.

The National Railways Authority said the driver had overshot the station and run into the buffers at the end of the track after passing through a stop signal.

The UN Middle East peace envoy urged Israel and the Palestinians Wednesday to calm surging violence in the occupied West Bank, a day after the latest Israeli raid killed six people.

"We are in the midst of a cycle of violence that must be stopped immediately," Tor Wennesland said in a statement.

"The Security Council has spoken with one voice, calling on the parties to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric."