U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is wrapping up a visit to Turkey with talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Friday as he presses ahead with efforts to unify Middle East nations in support of a peaceful political transition in Syria.

On the second stop of his latest Mideast trip — his 12th since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year but first since the weekend ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad — Blinken saw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late Thursday to try to bring Turkey into a consensus to prevent Syria from collapsing into wider turmoil.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said that “the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what's happening with Russia and Ukraine.”

Visiting U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared prepared to negotiate a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.

The jihadi rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad say they want to build a unified, inclusive country. But after nearly 14 years of civil war, putting that ideal into practice will not be easy.

For Syria's Kurdish minority, America's closest ally in the country, the struggle for a new order is entering a potentially even more challenging phase.

Some European Union countries on Thursday doubled down on their decision to rapidly halt asylum procedures for Syrian migrants in Europe, but said that it was too early to consider sending any of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled since 2011 back home.

Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and non-EU country Norway suspended asylum applications from Syrians in the wake of Bashar Assad's fall. France is weighing whether to take similar action, at least until Syria's new leadership and security conditions become clearer.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported Israeli strikes near Damascus, where AFP correspondents said they heard loud explosions.

"Israeli air strikes targeted the outskirts of the capital Damascus," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

An American who says he crossed into Syria on foot is now free after seven months in detention.

Travis Timmerman told the Al-Arabiya TV network in an interview on Thursday that he had been treated well. He said he had crossed into Syria from Lebanon on a Christian “pilgrimage.”

Israel has been accused of carrying out a "massacre" of journalists in Gaza in two separate reports from media freedom organizations this week that analyzed the deaths of reporters worldwide this year.

According to calculations from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published on Thursday, the Israeli army killed 18 journalists as they were working this year —- 16 in Gaza and two in Lebanon -- around a third of the total worldwide of 54.

Israel has lifted restrictions on public gatherings and outdoor activities in areas near the Lebanese border in the northern Golan Heights, two weeks after a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

The army’s Home Front Command said it was changing its public safety guidelines to “full activity” from “partial activity.”

All Russian naval ships that were docked at the Syrian port of Tartus have left and it appears Moscow is now looking for a new base along the coast now that its key ally, Bashar Assad, has been ousted a ruler of Syria, a U.S. official said.

It’s not clear where the ships will go, but Russia may seek a new port on the Mediterranean Sea along the African shoreline, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. assessments.