The United States insisted Friday on keeping the elite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps on its designated list of terror groups, as Washington pushes on with negotiations to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, had told a congressional hearing on Thursday that in his "personal opinion" the Quds Force should not be dropped from the terror list, which has been one of Tehran's conditions to renew the deal.

The United Nations said Friday it is seeking nearly $80 million for an emergency operation to prevent a catastrophic oil spill in the Red Sea off war-ravaged Yemen.

The 45-year-old tanker FSO Safer, long used as a floating oil storage platform with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, has been moored off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida since 2015, without being serviced.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett gave security agencies "full freedom" Friday to curb a surge in violence, after a Palestinian gunman killed three men in a popular nightlife district.

"There are not and will not be limits for this war," Bennett said, speaking hours after Thursday night's attack in the coastal city of Tel Aviv.

"We are granting full freedom of action to the army, the Shin Bet (the domestic security agency) and all security forces in order to defeat the terror," he said.

Saudi Arabia announced Thursday it was sending an ambassador to Lebanon for the first time since a row broke out last year over the Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen.

The foreign ministry "announces the return of the ambassador... to the sisterly Republic of Lebanon", read a statement carried by state media.

A diplomatic crisis erupted last October after the then-information minister was quoted criticising the Saudi role in Yemen, where a grinding war has produced what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The IMF announced Thursday a conditional agreement to provide Lebanon with $3 billion in aid to help it emerge from a severe economic crisis, following months of negotiations.

The country has been battered by triple-digit inflation, soaring poverty rates and the collapse of its currency since a 2020 debt default.

Officials in Beirut applauded the announcement as it will open the door to additional financial support from foreign donors.

The Pentagon's top general said Thursday he was opposed to removing the elite Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards from the US terror group list, one of Tehran's conditions for restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement.

"In my personal opinion, I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization, and I do not support them being delisted from the foreign terrorist organization list," Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told a congressional hearing.

A suspected jihadist attack at a revered shrine in Iran has claimed the life of a second Shiite Muslim cleric, state television said on Thursday.

The death of Sadegh Darai was reported as thousands of mourners attended the funeral of another Shiite cleric, Mohammad Aslani, stabbed by the same suspected Sunni extremist.

A third cleric was wounded in Tuesday's attack at the Imam Reza shrine in Iran's second-largest city of Mashhad, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Darai, seriously wounded during the knifing, died in hospital, state television said.

A Sudanese court on Thursday acquitted politicians and figures linked to the deposed regime of president Omar al-Bashir of plotting to overthrow the transition, a lawyer said.

The case involved 13 defendants including the head of the former ruling National Congress Party, Ibrahim Ghandour, who is also an ex-foreign minister under Bashir.

Following Bashir's April 2019 ouster, Sudan embarked on a fragile transition toward civilian rule which was derailed in an October military coup.

Yemen's president handed his powers to a leadership council on Thursday, a major shake-up in the camp that has been battling the Huthi rebels for more than seven years.

Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's announcement comes after a temporary truce took effect between pro-government troops and the insurgents, offering a glimmer of hope in a conflict which the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Here are some key questions and answers on what the shift of power means for the war-torn country:

- A new political era? -

The UN labour agency joined Amnesty International Thursday in calling on World Cup hosts Qatar to protect thousands of security guards who a report said were victims of "forced labour".

Guards posted at World Cup stadiums, ministries and offices often had to work months, sometimes years, without a day off, Amnesty said in a study.

Qatar, where the World Cup starts on November 21, insists it has cracked down on hundreds of "unscrupulous" companies, but acknowledged that abuses still take place.