Several explosions echoed across the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday, AFP journalists heard, during the war between the kingdom and Houthi fighters in Yemen.

The Iran-backed group has claimed repeated attacks targeting Riyadh airport in recent days along with salvos aimed at critical infrastructure and military sites elsewhere in Saudi Arabia.

Israel said the British consulate in Jerusalem ended its functions on Thursday but that seven diplomats would be allowed to remain in a limited capacity, with the UK saying it would continue to offer "vital services".

The move comes after Israel ordered the closure of the consulate in September as retaliation after London led Western sanctions over violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

A Palestinian man was killed and nine people were injured during an Israeli settler attack followed by army intervention in an occupied West Bank village on Wednesday, according to the mayor and the Palestinian health ministry.

Israel carried out new strikes in Gaza on Wednesday as it marked the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas, with Palestinian officials reporting three people dead.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed new attacks on airports and military facilities in neighboring Saudi Arabia on Wednesday as the kingdom is pulled deeper into the latest front in the Iran war, which also threatens a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

As the Saudi capital is targeted again, new cage-like fences have been erected this week around fuel tanks and other equipment of the Saudi state-run Aramco oil company near the Riyadh airport. The kingdom, the world's top oil exporter, has seen oil and military assets targeted in recent days.

The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 has accelerated Israel's decline, the chief of staff for Iran's armed forces said Wednesday, as Israelis marked the third anniversary of the deadliest day in their country's history.

"The Resistance Front turned its defensive strategy into an offensive strategy for the legitimate defence of the Palestinian people and their land, and accelerated the decline of the Zionist regime," Ali Abdollahi said in a statement.

It's perhaps the most dramatic wound inflicted on the Gaza Strip by Israel's military campaign over the past three years: The city of Rafah, once home to a quarter million people, has been erased.

Satellite imagery shows the Israeli military has systematically razed the southern city and other towns and districts to the ground and in some places plowed away the rubble. Demolition, using bulldozers and explosives, has continued unabated since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal reached a year ago, as the military solidifies its hold over the around 60% of the territory that it still controls.

Israelis gathered on Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 251 taken hostage, and sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has left much of the territory in ruins and its 2 million people living in dire conditions.

In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters, and the site of a music festival that the militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack against Israel. It is the first anniversary that all the hostages are home, marking a new stage of grief.

Israeli bulldozers on Tuesday demolished a five-story residential building in annexed east Jerusalem which was home to about 70 people, in a move the local Palestinian authority said was aimed at "forcible transfer".

Mediator Qatar on Tuesday said the United States and Iran were still engaged in talks to end the Middle East war, despite an apparent deadlock seven months into the conflict.

The indirect negotiations take account of "the concerns of the various parties", foreign ministry official Ibrahim Al-Hashmi told a regular press briefing.