The Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad says it has named a new leader.

The group said Friday at a news conference in Gaza that 65-year-old Ziad al-Nakhalah will head the group's secretly elected politburo, replacing longtime leader Ramadan Shalah.

The Trump administration pressed ahead Friday with plans to create an "Arab NATO" that would unite U.S. partners in the Middle East in an anti-Iran alliance.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in New York with foreign ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to advance the project. The State Department said Pompeo had stressed the need to defeat the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations as well ending the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, securing Iraq and "stopping Iran's malign activity in the region."

Bahraini prisoners suffering cancer, multiple sclerosis and sickle-cell anaemia do not have access to medical care, Amnesty International said Friday, accusing local authorities of "negligence".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday she and the leaders of Turkey, Russia and France planned to hold a summit next month on the situation in war-ravaged Syria.

The Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA on Thursday received pledges of $118 million from donor countries to help it overcome a crisis triggered by U.S. funding cuts.

The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels alongside government forces on Friday strongly criticised a UN human rights mission as its mandate comes up for renewal.

Facing a financial crisis after the United States cut funding, the head of the U.N. agency that helps 5.3 million Palestinian refugees says the problem of their well-being will continue to exist whether there's money or not — and especially if it was forced to shut down.

While the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, got some good news Wednesday with new pledges of $118 million, it remains $68 million in the hole this year. And in January it will face the problem of trying to find funding for next year's budget of about $1.2 billion.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday dismissed Israeli claims that Tehran was harbouring a secret atomic warehouse.

A year ago, the roads of Iraqi Kurdistan were decked out with green, red and white Kurdish flags as the region voted overwhelmingly for independence from Baghdad.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday claimed that Iran had a secret atomic warehouse in Tehran, holding up a map and a photograph of an outwardly innocuous looking building.

"In May we exposed the site of Iran's secret atomic archive. Today I'm revealing the site of a second facility, Iran's secret atomic warehouse," Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly.