Flash floods in Jordan swept away a school bus Thursday, killing at least 17 people, mostly pupils, emergency services said.

Saudi authorities first insisted the journalist Jamal Khashoggi came out of their Istanbul consulate alive. Now they say he was the victim of a premeditated murder.

Turkey on Thursday urged Saudi Arabia to answer questions that remain over the murder of Riyadh critic Jamal Khashoggi, such as who ordered his killing and what happened to the body.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Israel's president and a former minister of conspiring to have him toppled, triggering charges of "paranoia" ahead of elections.

Saudi dissident satirist Ghanem Almasarir, whose social media mockery of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gets millions of hits, told AFP he is undeterred by Jamal Khashoggi's murder.

Saudi Arabia acknowledged on Thursday that the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi appeared to have been premeditated, based on information from Turkey, as it sought to draw a line under the crisis.

Saudi Arabia says the country's powerful crown prince has attended the first meeting of a committee aiming to restructure the kingdom's intelligence services after the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency made the announcement on Thursday.

Turkey has been focusing on a well in the garden of Saudi Arabia's consulate as part of its investigation into the killing by Saudi officials of writer Jamal Khashoggi, whose body is still missing.

There were conflicting reports Thursday about whether investigators had searched the well in a case that has geopolitical implications because of the Saudi-Turkish rivalry in the Mideast region, as well as the U.S. alliance with both countries.

Rebels and jihadists traded fire with government forces in northern Syria overnight, their "fiercest" exchanges since a buffer zone deal was announced for the area last month, a monitor said Thursday.

A decision by Jordan's King Abdullah II to reclaim territory leased to Israel for a quarter of a century was spurred by domestic pressures and the Arab nation's struggling economy, experts said.