Three suspected attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a ship in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, including one that saw private security guards shoot and destroy a bomb-loaded drone boat, authorities said Friday.

The Houthis did not immediately claim the assaults, though they follow a monthslong campaign by the rebels targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Four Syrian army soldiers were injured in an Israeli airstrike Thursday, Syrian state media reported.

Syrian state news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military source, said strikes targeted “a number of military points in the central region.”

Leaders of the United States, Egypt and Qatar jointly demanded Israel and Hamas return to stalled talks on the war in Gaza next week, saying Thursday that "only the details" of carrying out a cease-fire and hostage release remain to be negotiated. "There is no further time to waste, nor excuses from any party for further delay," they said in a joint statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Thursday, "Pursuant to the proposal by the U.S. and the mediators, Israel will — on 15 August — send the negotiations team to a place to be determined in order to finalize the details of the implementation of the framework agreement."

The Israeli Supreme Court considered a petition Wednesday to shutter a desert military prison where soldiers have been accused of abusing Palestinians, as a new video emerged purporting to show the sexual assault of a Palestinian detainee.

Rights groups have been engaged in a legal battle since June to shut down the detention facility, known as Sde Teiman, where Israel has held many Palestinians detained in Gaza during the 10-month war with Hamas. The groups claim that conditions at the facility are grave and that abuse by Israeli soldiers is common, basing their claims on testimony from released detainees and Israeli whistleblowers.

Israel's Western allies have condemned remarks by its far-right finance minister, who suggested that causing the starvation of Gaza's population of more than 2 million Palestinians "might be just and moral" until hostages captured in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a speech Monday that Israel had no choice but to send humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Saudi Arabia has condemned the targeted killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran as a “flagrant violation” of international law.

The statement issued early Thursday by Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed ElKhereiji came after the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the largest bloc of Muslim countries, issued a similar statement following a high-level meeting the day before.

Human Rights Watch says Israeli soldiers killed at least seven people and severely wounded two, including a 5-year-old, when they attacked a home in Gaza City where a Palestinian family was sheltering in December.

The New York-based rights group released a report Thursday based on interviews with two members of the al-Khalidi family who witnessed the attack, and video footage released by the Israeli military that placed forces in the vicinity of the home at the time.

Israel committed a costly "strategic mistake" with its killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, Iran's acting foreign minister told AFP in an interview on Thursday.

"The act that the Zionists carried out in Tehran was a strategic mistake because it will cost them gravely," Ali Bagheri said, accused Israel of wanting "to expand tension, war and conflict to other countries."

A proposal has been made to the Iran-led axis in the region, promising that the efforts to reach a Gaza truce will be expedited if Iran and Hezbollah choose not to retaliate against Israel over the recent assassinations, an informed source told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper.

Lebanon’s al-Liwaa newspaper for its part said that “the U.S. is leading serious negotiations” in this regard.

Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday the diplomatic status of Norwegian envoys to the Palestinian Authority would be revoked over Oslo's "anti-Israel behavior" since the Gaza war began in October.

"I ordered the termination of any representation on behalf of the Norwegian Embassy in Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority", Katz said in a statement, adding that "there is a price for anti-Israel behavior".