France's president on Friday welcomed the arrest this week in the occupied West Bank of a key Palestinian suspect in a 1982 terror attack in Paris, calling it the result of "excellent cooperation" with the Palestinian Authority.

The Israeli military warned on Friday it would operate with "unprecedented force" in Gaza City, telling residents to flee southwards as it presses its ground offensive on the territory's largest urban center.

Israel has pummeled Gaza City with strikes and tank fire in its bid to seize it, nearly two years into the war that has devastated the Palestinian territory and left the Gaza City area gripped by a UN-declared famine.

A moment of truth: that's how French President Emmanuel Macron sees the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and other Western nations, with the hope to make it a landmark step in his push for peace in the Middle East as the devastating war in Gaza continues.

Weakened and unpopular at home, Macron is more than ever taking center stage in international talks. He is to formally declare France's recognition of a Palestinian state on Monday in New York at a United Nations conference co-chaired with Saudi Arabia, as the U.N. General Assembly starts.

The official who steered the U.N.'s diplomacy in Syria for nearly seven turbulent years is resigning, expressing hope that the country's new leaders can turn the page on a long period of war and strife.

Geir Pedersen, who has held diplomatic posts for decades for the world body and his native Norway, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that he would leave his position in the "near future" but did not say when.

The United States once again vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Thursday that had demanded an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, saying that the effort did not go far enough in condemning Hamas.

The 14 other members of the United Nations' most powerful body voted in favor of the resolution, which described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as "catastrophic" and called on Israel to lift all restrictions on the delivery of aid to the 2.1 million Palestinians in the territory.

Pakistan's defense minister says his nation's nuclear program "will be made available" to Saudi Arabia if needed under the countries' new defense pact, marking the first specific acknowledgment that Islamabad had put the kingdom under its nuclear umbrella.

A shooting at a border crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jordan on Thursday killed two men, Israeli medics and the military said.

The two men, about 20 and 60 years of age, who were wounded in the shooting at the Allenby crossing were later pronounced dead, Israel's emergency service Magen David Adom said.

Israeli fighter jets over the Red Sea launched ballistic missiles to target Hamas leaders in Qatar last week, a U.S. defense official said, in what was a novel method likely designed to overcome the energy-rich country's air defenses and avoid entering any Mideast nation's airspace.

The Sept. 9 attack, which killed six people in Qatar's capital, Doha, upended months of diplomacy mediated by the Arabian Peninsula nation to reach a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated the Gaza Strip over nearly two years. About a week after the missile launch, Israel began a ground offensive targeting Gaza City. That has reignited anger in the region over the war, while the Doha attack has raised fears in other countries that they, too, could be struck.

Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have signed a mutual defense pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both — a key accord in the wake of Israel's strike on Qatar last week.

The kingdom has long had close economic, religious and security ties to Pakistan, including reportedly providing funding for Islamabad's nuclear weapons program as it developed. Analysts — and Pakistani diplomats in at least one case — have suggested over the years that Saudi Arabia could be included under Islamabad's nuclear umbrella, particularly as tensions have risen over Iran's atomic program.

Syria will strike several security and military agreements with Israel by the end of the year, a foreign ministry official told AFP on Thursday.

"There is progress in the talks with Israel," said the official who requested anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media, adding that several agreements are expected to be signed "by the end of the year".