JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesia has trained up to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks during a planned peacekeeping operation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza, the defence minister said on Friday.

The world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is among the countries with which the United States has discussed plans for a multinational stabilisation force in Gaza, which include Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -From regulating the price of chicken to levying fees on cigarettes, Hamas is seeking to widen control over Gaza as U.S. plans for its future slowly take shape, Gazans say, adding to rivals' doubts over whether it will cede authority as promised.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -A special session on the situation in al-Fashir, Sudan, opened on Friday at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva following grave concerns about mass killings during the fall of the city to paramilitary forces.

States will consider a draft resolution which requests a U.N. fact-finding mission to conduct an urgent inquiry into recent violations allegedly committed by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies in al-Fashir, as well as identifying the perpetrators.

By Simon Lewis and Michelle Nichols

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Russia on Thursday proposed its own draft of a U.N. resolution on Gaza in a challenge to a U.S. effort to pass its own text at the Security Council that would endorse President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan, according to a copy of the draft seen by Reuters.

The U.S. formally circulated the draft resolution to the 15 Council members last week and has said it has regional support for its resolution that would authorize a two-year mandate for a transitional governance body and international stabilization force.

By Jasper Ward

(Reuters) -Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called for the United Nations to impose "appropriate measures" against the United States and Israel over military strikes in June against Iran's nuclear sites.Araghchi said that President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials bear "criminal responsibility" for the strikes after Trump's statement last week that he directed Israel's initial attack on Iran on June 13.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Pentagon intelligence report raises concerns over Saudi Arabia's bid to buy F-35 jets from the United States, warning that China could acquire the aircraft's technology if the sale proceeds, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the assessment.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Writing by Katharine Jackson)

By Timour Azhari

RIYADH (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia plans imminently to boost commercial ties with Lebanon after Lebanese authorities demonstrated "efficacy" in curbing drug smuggling to the kingdom over the past months, a senior Saudi official said on Thursday.

Ties between Riyadh and Beirut have been strained for years due to the power of Iran-backed Hezbollah over Lebanese political and security affairs, but the kingdom sees an opening after the group was severely weakened by war with Israel last year.

Survivors of the bloody takeover of El-Fasher walked for days through the desert, past bodies and armed men who humiliated them, desperate to escape the Sudanese city now overrun by paramilitary forces.

Several gave harrowing accounts to AFP, describing scenes of terror as nearly 100,000 people fled the last army stronghold in western Darfur after its fall to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 26.

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's domestic spy agency this year foiled potentially lethal threats by Iran directed against people whom Tehran sees as enemies, the agency's head said in a rare speech on Thursday.

Dan Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, also said his agents had blocked attempts by Russia to illegally acquire Canadian goods and technologies.

Rogers, appointed in February, spoke as he presented an annual update on security challenges facing Canada. CSIS directors seldom appear in public.

The Palestinian Authority said Thursday that Israeli soldiers had killed two 15-year-olds in the occupied West Bank, while Israel called them "terrorists" attempting to carry out an attack.

Settler violence has surged in recent weeks across the West Bank, drawing international condemnation and even rare criticism from within the Israeli military and government.