Israeli air strikes hit southern Syria, the Syrian defence ministry said, with state media reporting attacks near the capital Damascus.

"At approximately 23:05 (20:05 GMT) today, the Israeli enemy carried out air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the southern region," the defence ministry said in a statement Thursday, reporting no casualties.

Egypt is due to host Friday a high-level Hamas delegation for talks aimed at putting an end to the nearly 12-week war with Israel that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

The Cairo meeting comes as fighting -- triggered by Hamas's deadly October 7 attack on Israel -- rages in the besieged Palestinian territory's south and centre.

A drone crashed near a village in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, Israel's army said Thursday, after an Iraqi armed group with links to Hamas militants claimed responsibility for an attack in the area.

Qatar's Court of Appeal reduced Thursday the death sentence handed in October to eight retired Indian navy officers on spy charges, the Indian foreign ministry said.

Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement the detailed verdict has not been received yet. "We are in close touch with the legal team as well as family members to decide on the next steps," he said.

Igor Tudoran spent just 12 hours inside the Gaza Strip before a missile slammed into his tank, leaving him with a life-altering injury.

"Already within the tank, I understood from the condition of my leg that I would lose it. But the question was how much of it will I lose," he said, seated on a bed in the hospital where he has been treated since he was wounded last month.

Israeli forces on Thursday heavily bombed besieged Gaza as the centre of fierce combat against Hamas moves steadily south, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

The war that started with the Hamas attack of October 7 has devastated much of northern Gaza, while air and artillery strikes and house-to-house fighting have been heaviest in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli military says forces carried out an operation across multiple areas of the West Bank and arrested 21 Palestinians alleged to have helped finance Hamas.

In a statement Thursday, the military alleged the suspects were financial services providers who allegedly funded Hamas through digital currency and cash. Israeli media said those arrested worked as foreign exchange brokers.

Thousands massed Thursday in the Iranian capital for the funeral of senior Revolutionary Guards commander Razi Moussavi, three days after he was killed in what Tehran says was an Israeli strike.

The crowd in Tehran's central Imam Hossein square chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America".

Turkey has hit more than 70 sites allegedly linked to Kurdish groups in Syria and northern Iraq during airstrikes launched this week in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq, the defense minister said Wednesday.

At least 59 Kurdish militants were killed in the strikes as well as in land clashes, Yasar Guler said in a video message to top military officials which was posted on X, formerly Twitter.

"A house on the beach is not a dream!" The advertising slogan by an Israeli settlement developer is music to the ears of former Gaza settlers yearning to return to the Palestinian territory after the war.

Nearly two decades after Israeli settlers pulled out of Gaza, the real estate developer Harey Zahav sparked controversy when it posted the slogan on social media in mid-December as Israel wages a war on Gaza.