Iran would strike U.S. military and shipping targets in the event of a new attack by the United States during an ongoing wave of protests, the parliament speaker said on Sunday.

Major Iranian cities were gripped overnight by new mass rallies denouncing the Islamic republic, as the son of the ousted shah urged protesters on Saturday to plan to seize city centers.

Venezuela was set to hold talks on Saturday with U.S. envoys in Caracas on restoring diplomatic ties, days after U.S. forces deposed Nicolas Maduro as its president.

South Africa on Saturday began naval drills with Russia, Iran and China, describing the manoeuvres off its coast as not merely a show of force but a vital response to rising maritime tensions.

EU countries approved Friday a huge but divisive trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur, diplomats said, giving Brussels the green light to sign an accord championed by business groups but loathed by many European farmers.

A majority of the European Union's 27 nations voted in favour of the pact at an ambassadors' meeting in Brussels, despite opposition from France, Ireland and others concerned about its impact on the agricultural sector, several European diplomats told AFP.

Israeli airstrikes on Friday targeted several areas in south and east Lebanon, with the Israeli army claiming that they struck alleged Hezbollah sites, a day after the Lebanese Army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm the group in the south.

In the south, the strikes hit open areas near Kfarfila, Sujud, Houmine al-Fawqa and Deir al-Zahrani in the Iqlim al-Tuffah region and the al-Bissariyeh area near Sidon. The raids also targeted the outskirts of the town of al-Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa and the al-Jabbour hills in west Bekaa.

Pope Leo XIV on Friday lamented rising violence in the occupied West Bank and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying Palestinians had the right to live peacefully in their "own land".

"Sadly, there has been an increase in violence in the West Bank against the Palestinian civilian population, which has the right to live in peace in its own land," said the US pope, adding that civilians in Gaza also should be assured "a future of lasting peace and justice in their own land".

A delegation of Yemeni separatists in Riyadh said their group was dissolving on Friday after a failed land grab, but the announcement was dismissed by its spokesman who called it "ridiculous".

Southern Transitional Council (STC) secretary general Abdulrahman al-Subaihi appeared distracted as he read a prepared statement on a Saudi TV news channel.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday insisted that the Islamic republic would "not back down" in the face of protesters who he called "vandals" and "saboteurs", in a speech broadcast on state TV.

Speaking to supporters in his first comments on the escalating protests since January 3, Khamenei said U.S. President Donald Trump's hands "are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians" and predicted the "arrogant" U.S. leader would be "overthrown" like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

Russia on Friday said the United States had decided to release two Russian members of the crew of a Russian-flagged oil tanker that Washington seized earlier this week.

"In response to our request, U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to release two Russian citizens aboard the Marinera tanker, previously detained by the United States during an operation in the North Atlantic," Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.