Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said Thursday Palestinians "will not sit with their arms crossed" in the face of Israeli "aggression" against the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

He was speaking in Beirut after Israel blamed Palestinian militants for firing a barrage of rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed Israel's enemies would "pay a price" following a barrage of rockets from Lebanon that was blamed on Palestinian groups.

"We will strike our enemies and they will pay the price for any act of aggression," Netanyahu said during a cabinet meeting, according to a short video statement released by his office.

Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria have handed over four women and 10 children to a Canadian delegation in readiness for their repatriation, a Kurdish official said.

Western governments have faced mounting criticism for not taking back more of their citizens who traveled to Iraq and Syria to volunteer for the Islamic State group and the Canadian government was successfully sued.

Nawal Sweidan quietly folded her son's clothes and straightened the bedsheets in his room as she always used to do when he was out at work or at university. She still does it regularly, even though he hasn't been home for almost 10 years since he was taken away by militiamen.

Her son Safaa vanished in late July 2014. At around 1:30 a.m., just days before the holy month of Ramadan was to end and holiday celebrations were to begin, a group of men showed up at the family's doorstep and asked for Safaa, a law student and postal carrier in his early 20s.

Palestinian militants fired a barrage of rockets early Thursday, setting off air raid sirens in southern Israel, as violence erupted for the second day in a row during a sensitive period of overlapping holidays.

The barrage came after another tense night at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli police clashed with Muslim worshippers attempting to stay overnight, in defiance of long-standing compromises about management of the compound. The Israeli military said seven rockets launched from the Gaza Strip all exploded in midair. No group claimed responsibility for the barrage.

Top diplomats from Middle East rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia met in Beijing on Thursday, resuming diplomatic relations and pledging to work together to bring "security and stability" to their turbulent region.

In a joint statement released after talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the two sides vowed to continue to work together to improve ties.

Israel is holding over 1,000 Palestinian detainees without charge or trial, the highest number since 2003, an Israeli human rights group said.

Israel says the controversial tactic, known as administrative detention, helps authorities thwart attacks and hold dangerous militants without divulging incriminating material for security reasons. Palestinians and rights groups say the system is widely abused and denies due process, with the secret nature of the evidence making it impossible for administrative detainees or their lawyers to mount a defense.

Senior diplomats from Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran have wrapped up two days of talks in Moscow, part of the Kremlin's efforts to help broker a rapprochement between the Turkish and Syrian governments.

The Russian and Turkish foreign ministries issued terse readouts, saying diplomats discussed preparations for a planned meeting of the four countries' foreign ministers. Moscow described the consultations as "frank and direct," and Ankara said they were held in a "transparent and clear manner," while offering no details.

Suspected Israeli airstrikes in Syria in recent weeks have killed two Iranian military advisers, temporarily put the country's two largest airports out of service, and raised fears of regional escalation.

While Israel has fought a shadow war with Iran in Syria for years, it has intensified recently, with near-daily airstrikes attributed to Israel by Syrian officials over the past week.

Iran has named an ambassador to the United Arab Emirates nearly eight years after his predecessor left, as a thaw in relations with the Gulf Arab states picks up pace.

"After some eight years, the foreign ministry has named Reza Ameri as the Islamic Republic of Iran's new ambassador to the United Arab Emirates," Iran's official IRNA news agency reported late Tuesday.