With no backpack, books or uniform, 11-year-old Layan Haji navigates the ruins of Gaza City and heads to a makeshift classroom after two years of war halted her education.

But the school is not what she is used to. Painted walls and students' artwork no longer adorn the walls and hallways -- instead, tents set up in a battered building serve as their temporary classrooms.

"I walk for half an hour at least. The streets are devastated, full of ruins... It is difficult and sad," Haji said, wearing a torn shirt and patched trousers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for his government to re-examine Afghan immigrants who entered the United States during the former President Joe Biden's administration.

The president called the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington "an act of terror," saying the suspect came from Afghanistan in 2021.

"This heinous assault was an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror," Trump said in pre-taped remarks from Florida, where he is spending the Thanksgiving holiday.

Pope Leo XIV began a four-day visit to Turkey on Thursday, urging Ankara to embrace its role as a mediator in a world gripped by conflict after talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"Mr President, may Turkey be a source of stability and rapprochement between peoples, in service of a just and lasting peace," he said in the capital as he began the first overseas trip of his papacy.

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo begins his first trip outside Italy as Catholic leader on Thursday with a visit to Turkey, where he is expected to make appeals for peace in the Middle East and urge unity among long-divided Christian churches.

The first U.S. pope chose mainly Muslim Turkey as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early Church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world's Christians today.

Tension is escalating between Israel's political and military top brass over accountability for the failures behind the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused of sidestepping blame.

Weekly protests against Netanyahu's leadership of the subsequent two-year war in Gaza and demanding the return of hostages became emblematic of the anger boiling within parts of Israeli society over how the attack and its fallout have been handled.

Iran will allow two French citizens held by the Islamic republic for over three years to return home in "exchange" for France freeing an Iranian citizen "in the next two months", Tehran's foreign minister said on Wednesday.

In an interview with TV channel France 24 after talks in Paris with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot, Abbas Araghchi said "an exchange was negotiated between us and France".

By Ceyda Caglayan

SANLIURFA, Turkey (Reuters) -Turkey unveiled dozens of new finds at a major archaeological site in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, giving fresh insight into an area seen as showing humanity's transition from hunter-gatherers to settled societies more than 11,000 years ago.

On a plateau overlooking the fertile plains of what is often called the "cradle of civilisation", the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Gobeklitepe and nearby Karahantepe are transforming archaeologists' understanding of prehistoric times.

Rachelle Mazraani is travelling from Sydney to Beirut for Pope Leo XIV's visit this week, one of many Lebanese at home and abroad who hope the trip will revive their struggling country.

After visiting Turkey, Leo is to arrive in Lebanon on Sunday for a three-day trip that includes an open-air mass at Beirut's waterfront that organisers expect to draw 120,000 people.

He will also hold a special meeting with those aged 16 to 35 in Bkerke, north of Beirut, where the patriarchate of Lebanon's Maronite Church is located.

Israel's military on Wednesday launched a new operation against Palestinian armed groups in the occupied West Bank, where a local governor told AFP that Israeli forces had raided several towns.

The Israeli military, police and internal security service said in a joint statement that they had begun "a broad counter-terrorism operation" in the north of the Palestinian territory after they received intelligence about "attempts to establish terrorist strongholds".

In one afternoon, Amani Bazzi went from being a doting mother-of-four to a widow grieving three young children.

An Israeli strike in south Lebanon killed them as the family was returning home after having lunch with her parents.

"Our whole life was our kids. We did everything together," said Bazzi from the Beirut hospital where her eldest daughter Aseel, 13, is being treated for devastating head-to-toe wounds.

"Why should they have been part of this horrific scene?" asked 33-year-old Bazzi. "Why did this happen to us?"