An aid convoy on Tuesday passed through a newly re-opened border crossing into rebel-held north Syria, where help has been slow to arrive since last week's earthquake, which killed nearly 40,000 people in the region.

Rare survivors were pulled from the debris eight days after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck Syria and Turkey, but the focus has switched from rescue to providing food and shelter to millions in need.

Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed Beijing's "solidarity" with Iran on Tuesday as he hosted the Islamic republic's President Ebrahim Raisi at the start of a three-day trip.

For the first state visit by an Iranian president to China in more than 20 years, Raisi has brought a large trade and finance delegation to Beijing and was earlier greeted by Xi on a red carpet.

An Israeli policeman was killed Monday in a stabbing attack carried out by a Palestinian boy in annexed east Jerusalem, police said, triggering a raid on a refugee camp amid a spike in violence.

The border policeman was stabbed on Monday afternoon while searching a bus at the entrance to east Jerusalem's Shuafat refugee camp, officers said, who arrested a 13-year-old Palestinian from the camp.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called Monday for international aid for reconstruction in the quake-struck country during a meeting with United Nations relief chief Martin Griffiths, the presidency said.

After more than a decade of war, Assad's government remains a pariah in the West, complicating international efforts to assist those affected by the quake.

Assad "stressed the importance of international efforts focused on helping to rebuild infrastructure in Syria," the statement said.

Serkan Tatoglu is haunted by the question his six-year-old keeps asking since their house collapsed in last week's earthquake in Turkey.

"Are we going to die?" she wonders, while looking up at scenes reminiscent of an apocalyptic movie set.

Coffins line roadsides, and ambulance sirens wail around the clock.

Walking through the rubble of flattened buildings, children watch as rescue workers lift body bags from the putrid-smelling debris.

An appeals court in Yemen's Huthi rebel-held capital Sanaa has confirmed a five-year jail sentence for a model accused of "prostitution", her lawyer said Monday, denouncing a political verdict.

The Iran-backed Huthis took over Sanaa in 2014 and have been enforcing a morality campaign, particularly against women.

Entisar al-Hammadi, 21, was arrested in February 2021 in Sanaa at a checkpoint while on her way to a photo shoot with a friend.

Last year the two women were sentenced to five years in jail by a lower court for "prostitution", "fornication" and "drug abuse".

Israel's hard-right government was planning Monday to push through parliament a key element of its controversial judicial revamp.

The "reasonability clause" would remove the power of the Supreme Court to overrule government decisions that its judges deem unreasonable.

The wider reform plans have sparked protests, often drawing tens of thousands, since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government proposed them in January.

While his wife and two daughters lay under the rubble after Syria's earthquake, Abdelbaset Khalil tended to hundreds of patients who flooded into his hospital.

Khalil, a nurse anaesthetist, was already at work when the 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria last week, flattening entire neighbourhoods and leaving a combined death toll of more than 35,000, including at least 3,581 in Syria.

As the quake shook the ground beneath him, he rushed out of the hospital to find his apartment building had collapsed with his family inside.

Saudi Arabia will send its first ever woman astronaut on a space mission later this year, the latest move by the kingdom to revamp its ultra-conservative image.

Rayyana Barnawi will join fellow Saudi Ali Al-Qarni on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

Barnawi and Al-Qarni will fly to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as part of a mission this spring by the private space company Axiom Space, SPA and Axiom said.

Rescue teams began winding down the search for survivors on Monday as the focus switched to tackling a dire humanitarian disaster caused by the earthquake that has left more than 35,000 dead in Turkey and Syria.

Syria, already wracked by 12 years of civil war, is of particular concern. The United Nations held an emergency meeting Monday on how to boost aid to rebel-held areas, as anger grows over a sluggish international response to the pariah nation.