Syrian authorities said some 100 square kilometres (40 square miles) of forest had "turned to ash" in wildfires as firefighters from neighbouring Jordan arrived Sunday to battle a fourth day of blazes in the province of Latakia.

Syrian emergency workers have faced tough conditions including high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain in the coastal province and the danger of explosive war remnants, in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Sunday his group would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the Lebanese militants to disarm.

His speech came ahead of a visit Monday by US envoy Thomas Barrack during which Lebanese authorities are due to respond to a request to disarm Hezbollah by year's end, according to a Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he hoped an upcoming meeting with US President Donald Trump could "help advance" a Gaza ceasefire deal, after sending negotiators to Doha for indirect talks with Hamas.

Under mounting pressure to end the war, now approaching its 22nd month, the Israeli premier is scheduled to sit down on Monday with Trump, who has recently made a renewed push to end the fighting.

In the West Bank city of Tulkarem, the landscape has been transformed after Israeli army bulldozers ploughed through its two refugee camps in what the military called a hunt for Palestinian militants.

The army gave thousands of displaced residents just a few hours to retrieve belongings from their homes before demolishing buildings and clearing wide avenues through the rubble.

Now residents fear the clearances will erase not just buildings, but their own status as refugees from lands inhabited by generations of their ancestors in what is now Israel.

BRICS leaders meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday are expected to decry US President Donald Trump's "indiscriminate" trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy.

Emerging nations, which represent about half the world's population and 40 percent of global economic output, have united over "serious concerns" about US import tariffs, according to a draft summit statement obtained by AFP on Saturday.

Since coming to office in January, Trump has threatened allies and rivals alike with a slew of punitive duties.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday made his first public appearance since the outbreak of his country's recent 12-day war with Israel, taking part in a religious ceremony in Tehran, state media reported.

The octogenarian leader was shown in a video broadcast by state television greeting people and being cheered at a mosque as worshippers marked the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, an important date for Shia Muslims.

US President Donald Trump hosts Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to press the Israeli prime minister to end the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Trump has vowed to be tough on Netanyahu as he hopes to use the momentum from the truce between Iran and Israel to secure a ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, too.

Trump says Israel is committed to a 60-day halt in fighting and Hamas says it has responded positively to a US-backed proposal -- but sealing a final deal to end the 21-month-old war will be easier said than done.

Britain reestablished full diplomatic relations with Syria on Saturday, more than a decade after cutting ties, as Foreign Secretary David Lammy met the country's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus.

In 2011, Britain was among the first countries to acknowledge rebel groups as the official Syrian government after then-president Bashar al-Assad's crushing of pro-democracy protests plunged the country into civil war.

London also joined sanctions against Syria and later closed its embassy in Damascus, going on to launch air strikes on Assad's forces.

French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal will not appeal his five-year prison sentence to Algeria's Supreme Court, sources close to the author said Saturday, as Paris stepped up its calls for him to be pardoned.

The 80-year-old dual national was sentenced to five years in March on charges related to undermining Algeria's territorial integrity over comments made to a French media outlet.

"According to our information, he will not appeal to the Supreme Court," the president of the author's support committee, Noelle Lenoir, told broadcaster France Inter.

Saudi Arabia, Russia and six other key members of the OPEC+ alliance will discuss crude production on Saturday, with analysts expecting the latest in a series of output hikes for August.

The wider OPEC+ group -- comprising the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies -- began output cuts in 2022 in a bid to prop up prices.

But in a policy shift, eight alliance members spearheaded by Saudi Arabia surprised markets by announcing they would significantly raise production from May, sending oil prices plummeting.