(Reuters) -The World Health Organization said on Thursday the aid to Gaza is increasing, but is still only a "fraction of what's needed" as the health agency attempts to rebuild the region's healthcare system.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said they are working with partners to plan for the long-term recovery and reconstruction of Gaza's health system, which is expected to cost at least $7 billion.

Many have suffered from injuries sustained during the two-year-long Israel-Hamas conflict that is now in a ceasefire under a U.S.-brokered agreement.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -Supplies of food into Gaza are not meeting the nutritional needs of people in the enclave, some parts of which are experiencing famine, aid groups said on Thursday.

"The situation in the Gaza Strip remains catastrophic, even two weeks after the ceasefire began,"Bahaa Zaqout, Director of External Relations at the Palestinian NGO PARC, said via video link from Deir Al Balah in Gaza.

Turkey is in talks with its other countries over its potential participation in an international Gaza peacekeeping mission with its military "ready" if needed, a defence ministry source said Thursday.

"We are continuing contact with our counterparts regarding our participation in the task force to be established in Gaza," the source said.

The World Health Organization said Thursday there had been little improvement in the amount of aid going into Gaza since a ceasefire took hold -- and no observable reduction in hunger.

"The situation still remains catastrophic because what's entering is not enough," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online press briefing from the UN health agency's Geneva headquarters.

Since the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on October 10, there has been "no dent in hunger, because there is not enough food", he warned.

French magistrates this summer issued a new arrest warrant against ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad over deadly chemical attacks in 2013, a judicial source said on Thursday.

This means France has now put out three separate arrest warrants against the former dictator exiled in Russia, who ruled Syria from 2000 until he was toppled last year after more than 14 years of devastating civil war.

KABUL (Reuters) -Border closures between Pakistan and Afghanistan have pushed up prices of essential goods in both nations, with tomatoes now costing five times more in Pakistan since fighting broke out between the two South Asian neighbours this month.

Border crossings between the two countries have remained closed since October 11, following ground fighting and Pakistani airstrikes across their contested 2,600-km (1,600-mile) frontier that killed dozens on both sides in the worst fighting since the Taliban's 2021 takeover of Kabul.

Saudi Arabia has appointed a conservative cleric in his nineties as its top religious leader, state media said, sticking with tradition even as rapid social changes upend the previously cloistered kingdom.

Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan bin Abdullah Al-Fawzan was named the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia by royal decree, the official SPA news agency reported late on Wednesday.

Fawzan, who has made controversial comments on child marriage and minority Shiite Muslims, succeeds the conservative Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, who died in September after more than 20 years in the role.

US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Israel over annexing the West Bank in an interview published Thursday, as visiting Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced confidence that a US-backed ceasefire in Gaza would hold.

Trump's remarks were made to Time magazine by telephone on October 15 -- just days after the Gaza truce plan he spearheaded took effect -- but were only published on Thursday.

By Simon Lewis and Alexander Cornwell

WASHINGTON/TEL AVIV (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the Israeli Knesset's move towards the annexation of the West Bank would threaten President Donald Trump's plan to end the conflict in Gaza, which has produced a shaky ceasefire so far.

By Guy Faulconbridge and Anton Kolodyazhnyy

MOSCOW (Reuters) -A Russian court freed a French long-distance cyclist on Thursday after finding him guilty of illegally crossing the country's border with China while trying to break the world record for cycling across the Eurasian landmass.

Sofiane Sehili, a French citizen who describes himself as an "ultra-endurance racer and adventure cyclist", was freed by the court in Russia's Far Eastern district and exempted from paying a 50,000-rouble ($615) fine, a court in Primorye said.