Sources close to the Iraqi government told AFP on Friday that no deal was made to secure the release of Israeli-Russian academic Elizabeth Tsurkov this week, saying her abductors had instead bowed to unspecified "pressure".

Kidnapped in Baghdad in March of 2023, Tsurkov was set free late Tuesday, hours after Israel carried out an unprecedented strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders. She was handed over to the U.S. embassy in Iraq, then flown the following day to Israel.

Libya's U.N.-recognized government based in Tripoli has reached a preliminary accord with a powerful armed group to end months of tensions that have flared into occasional violence, a government adviser and local media said Saturday.

Negotiations between the government and the Radaa Force were facilitated by Turkey, according to the same sources.

Top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio began a visit to Israel on Sunday, after expressing the Trump administration's unwavering support for its ally in the war with Hamas despite a strike in Qatar that drew broad criticism of Israel.

Lebanese authorities said that one person was killed Friday in an Israeli strike on the country's south near the border, the latest deadly raid this week despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

"An Israeli enemy strike on the town of Aitaroun killed one person," the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said that Damascus is negotiating with Israel to reach a security agreement that would see Israel leave areas it occupied after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad on December 8, Israel deployed troops to the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The Israeli military said Saturday that more than 250,000 people have fled Gaza City for other parts of the territory over the past few weeks, since it intensified its assault on Gaza's largest urban center.

"According to IDF (military) estimates, more than a quarter of a million residents of Gaza City have moved out of the city for their own safety," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee said on X.

Russia's central bank on Friday cut its key interest rate, but warned inflation was still too high, amid growing concerns over an economic slowdown amid the Ukraine offensive.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced that the suspect had been taken into custody over the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk after a massive manhunt.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday his patience with Russia's Vladimir Putin was running out and hinted at tough sanctions over the war in Ukraine -- while suggesting Kyiv also needed to compromise.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez of levelling a "genocidal threat" against Israel, drawing an outraged response from Madrid on Friday.