Morocco was in shock Sunday after emergency crews found a five-year-old boy dead at the bottom of a well in a tragic end to a painstaking five-day rescue operation that gripped the nation and the world.

The Moroccan royal palace announced Saturday night the death of a 5-year-old boy who had been trapped in a deep well for four days.

Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy's parents in a statement released by the palace.

Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Saturday urged the African Union to withdraw Israel's accreditation, bringing simmering tensions to a head as the 55-member bloc opened a two-day summit in Addis Ababa.

Moroccan rescuers worked through the night into Saturday, the fifth day of an increasingly urgent and nerve-wracking effort to rescue Rayan, a five-year-old boy trapped underground in a well.

Hundreds of boys are missing from a Syrian Kurdish prison that held members of the Islamic State group and their families, after the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces fought IS militants for 10 days to retake the facility, an international human rights group said Friday.

The report by Human Rights Watch came a day after IS's top leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. raid on his safehouse in northwest Syria. President Joe Biden said al-Qurayshi had been responsible for the Syria prison assault, as well as genocide against the Yazidi people in Iraq in 2014.

A day after the death of Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi during a U.S. raid in Syria, many questions remain on the operation and the jihadist group's future.

Moroccans waited anxiously Friday as rescuers with heavy diggers closed in on Rayan, a five-year-old boy trapped in a deep well for three nights.

A Danish court on Friday convicted three leaders of an Iranian Arab separatist group based in the Scandinavian country of spying for Saudi intelligence between 2012 and 2020.

Moroccans held their breath as emergency services worked Thursday to rescue a five-year-old boy trapped in a deep well for two days.

The boy, named as Rayan, had fallen down the narrow 32-metre (100-foot) well in his village near Bab Berred, in the northern tourist province of Chefchaouen, on Tuesday evening, local media said.

A U.S. special forces raid in northwestern Syria early Thursday killed the top leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, President Joe Biden said.

"Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — the leader of ISIS," Biden said in a statement. He said all Americans involved in the operation returned safely.