Israel on Thursday welcomed the European parliament's ratification of an aviation treaty, despite criticism from leading EU members of its plans to annex swathes of the occupied West Bank.

The EU must not look "weak" in enforcing a UN arms embargo on Libya, the Greek government said Friday after recent naval incidents involving Turkey.

Turkish bombardment has killed a Kurdish shepherd in northern Iraq, a local official said on Friday, the first known civilian victim of Ankara's air and ground assault on the region. 

For generations, the people of Fasayil herded animals on the desert bluffs and palm-shaded lowlands of the Jordan Valley. Today, nearly every man in the Palestinian village works for Jewish settlers in the sprawling modern farms to the north and south.

The grazing lands to the west and east, leading down to the banks of the biblical Jordan River, have been swallowed up by the settlements or fenced off by the Israeli military. So instead of leading sheep out to pasture, the men rise before dawn to work in the settlements for around $3 an hour — or they move away.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has accepted the blame for a failure to extract answers from Egypt over the unresolved 2016 murder of an Italian student in Cairo, while defending a controversial frigate deal.

Baghdad on Thursday demanded Ankara immediately halt its assault in northern Iraq, where Turkish special forces and helicopters have been targeting Kurdish rebel hideouts.

President Bashar al-Assad's government has condemned new U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria Wednesday, calling them a form of "terrorism" perpetrated by Washington in the war-scarred country.

Seven Syrians who suffered or witnessed rape and sexual abuse in detention centers under President Bashar al-Assad's regime have submitted a criminal complaint to prosecutors in Germany, an NGO supporting them said Thursday.

Iran on Thursday condemned new US sanctions which punish any company that works with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, saying they were "cruel" and would exacerbate suffering in the war-torn country.

Rockets hit Baghdad's Green Zone, home to the US embassy, on Thursday, the fifth such attack in 10 days, security sources inside the high-security district told AFP.