The director of a new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza told the Venice Film Festival Wednesday she wanted to give "a voice and a face" to victims.

"We've seen that the narrative all around the world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media, and I think this is so dehumanising," Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania told journalists ahead of the world premiere of "The Voice of Hind Rajab".

"And that's why cinema, art, and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and a face."

Syrian Kurdish forces said Wednesday they thwarted an escape attempt by more than 50 inmates of Al-Hol camp, which holds people suspected of ties to the Islamic State (IS) group.

Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria have run camps hosting thousands of suspected jihadists and their families since the jihadist group lost its last territory in Syria six years ago.

Kurdish security forces said they thwarted a "mass escape attempt" from the Al-Hol camp by several IS families on Tuesday "numbering 56 individuals".

DUBAI (Reuters) -The United Arab Emirates warned Israel on Wednesday that any annexation of the West Bank would constitute a red line for Abu Dhabi that would severely undermine the spirit of the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between the two countries.

"From the very beginning, we viewed the Accords as a way to enable our continued support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspiration for an independent state," Lana Nusseibeh, Assistant Minister for Political Affairs and Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UAE, told Reuters.

At least 21,000 children in Gaza have been disabled since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023, a United Nations committee said Wednesday.

Around 40,500 children have suffered "new war-related injuries" in the nearly two years since the war erupted, with more than half of them left disabled, said the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

By Sayed Hassib

MAZAR DARA, Afghanistan (Reuters) -Mir Salam Khan mourns the loss of his wife and three children in Afghanistan’s mountainous eastern province of Kunar, hit by an earthquake of magnitude 6 that crumbled thousands of homes.

"We buried them with wooden planks and plastic sheets so the soil would not fall directly on the bodies," said the 65-year-old resident of the village of Mazar Dara. "That was all we could do."

By Tala Ramadan

(Reuters) -Syria has interrogated and detained members of its defence and interior ministries suspected of committing abuses against civilians in the predominantly Druze province of Sweida in July, the committee investigating the violence has said.

Hundreds of people were killed in Sweida in violence that began between tribes and Druze factions but which worsened after Syrian troops were dispatched to the area. Bereaved relatives accused government forces of committing execution-style killings on camera.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish authorities ordered the detention of seven officials from opposition-run municipalities in Istanbul on Wednesday, broadcaster NTV said, as part of an ongoing crackdown against the main party opposing President Tayyip Erdogan.

The detentions follow the removal of the main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) Istanbul provincial head Ozgur Celik by a court on Tuesday over alleged irregularities in a 2023 CHP provincial congress.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -The Israeli military moved deeper into Gaza City on Wednesday, with soldiers and tanks pushing into Sheikh Radwan, one of the urban centre's largest and most crowded neighbourhoods.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces have advanced through Gaza City's outer suburbs and are now just a few kilometres from the city centre despite international calls to halt the offensive.

By Mariam Rizk and Mohamed Ezz

CAIRO (Reuters) -The rent on Khaddara Ibrahim Ali's cramped apartment in downtown Cairo was just about the only expense she could count on staying stable as waves of soaring inflation and subsidy cuts ate away at her modest income.

Thanks to a decades-old rent cap, Ali, 84, pays just under 11 Egyptian pounds ($0.23) per month for the eighth-story home where she has lived for half a century, overlooking a patchwork of ageing buildings and narrow streets in the Azbakeya district.

By Sayed Hassib and Charlotte Greenfield

KABUL/MAZAR DARA, Afghanistan (Reuters) -Afghanistan airdropped commandos on Wednesday to pull survivors from the rubble of homes in mountainous eastern areas ravaged by earthquakes this week that have killed 1,400, as it ramped up efforts to deliver food, shelter and medical supplies.

The first earthquake of magnitude 6, one of Afghanistan's worst in recent years, unleashed widespread damage and destruction when it struck the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar around midnight on Sunday at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles).