By Ceyda Caglayan and Ali Kucukgocmen

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -A set of carved stone animals - a fox, a vulture and a wild boar - is shedding light on the way prehistoric people told stories after being unearthed by archaeologists in southeastern Turkey.

Dating back some 11,500 years, the trio of figurines found at the Karahantepe archaeological site is the first known example of objects being arranged in a specific way to convey a narrative, archaeologists say.

(Reuters) -Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune signed a decree on Thursday ending the tenure of Prime Minister Nadir Larbaoui and appointing GhriebSifias acting prime minister, state media reported.

(Reporting by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Toby Chopra)

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed at least 16 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday and wounded dozens in the south of the enclave, local health officials said, as residents reported intensified military bombardment in the suburbs of Gaza City.

The military is preparing to take Gaza City, the enclave's largest urban centre, despite international calls on Israel to reconsider this over fears that the operation would cause significant casualties and displace the roughly one million Palestinians sheltering there.

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Hundreds of U.N. staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Volker Turk have asked him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter sent on Wednesday said the staff consider that the legal criteria for genocide in the nearly two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have been met, citing the scale, scope and nature of violations documented there.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -More food aid is reaching Gaza but it still remains far from enough to prevent widespread starvation, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) told Reuters on Thursday.

"We're getting a little bit more food in. We're moving in the right direction ... but it's not nearly enough to do what we need to do to make sure that people are not malnourished and not starving," WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain told Reuters in an interview via video link from Jerusalem.

By John Irish, Parisa Hafezi and Michelle Nichols

PARIS/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Britain, France and Germany will begin the process of reimposing U.N. sanctions on Iran at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, two European diplomats said.

The trio, known as the E3, met Iran on Tuesday to try to revive diplomacy over the nuclear programme before they lose the ability in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two Microsoft employees were fired on Wednesday after taking part in a sit-in at the office of the company's president to protest the firm's ties to Israel as it wages war in Gaza.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the workers were terminated following "serious breaches of company policies and our code of conduct" stemming from "the break-in at the executive offices."

Anna Hattle and Riki Fameli received voicemails informing them that they were fired, the protest group No Azure for Apartheid said in a statement.

By Joe Cash and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un will attend a military parade in Beijing, marking the first public appearance of the two leaders alongside President Xi Jinping in a show of collective defiance amid Western pressure.

No Western leaders will be among the 26 foreign heads of state and government attending the parade next week with the exception of Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, a European Union member state, according to the Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday.

The UN Security Council is set to vote Thursday on the future of the blue helmet peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon, which has faced US and Israeli opposition.

Some 10,800 peacekeepers have been acting as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon since 1978. But the usual renewal of their mandate, which expires Sunday, is facing hostility this year from Israel and its American ally, who want them to leave.

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Iran has launched a speedy clean-up operation at a nuclear-related site in northern Tehran hit by Israeli airstrikes that will likely remove evidence of any nuclear weapons development work, a research group said on Wednesday.

Satellite imagery "shows a significant effort by Iran to rapidly demolish damaged or destroyed buildings, likely to sanitize any incriminating nuclear weapons research and development activities," the Institute for Science and International Security said.