The head of Libya's UN-backed government, Fayez al-Sarraj, urged the international community on Thursday to find a "common vision" for the chaos-hit North African nation, ahead of crisis talks in Sicily next week.

Syrian government forces killed 23 rebels near Idlib province on Friday, the deadliest clash to rock a buffer zone where a Russian-Turkish truce is to be enforced.

A Serbian and four Croatian nationals have been arrested for stealing millions of dollars of jewellery in Venice that belongs to the Qatari royal family, the Croatian interior ministry said Thursday.

The head of Libya's U.N.-backed government, Fayez al-Sarraj, urged the international community to find a "common vision" for the chaos-hit North African nation, ahead of crisis talks in Sicily next week.

In an exclusive interview with AFP at his unity government's headquarters in Tripoli, Sarraj also hit out at "negative interventions by some countries" in Libya, without naming them.

Syrian state media said Thursday the army has freed all remaining Druze women and children abducted in July from the southern province of Sweida by the Islamic State group.

The army "clashed directly with the IS terrorist organization, which had abducted women and children from the Sweida province," state news agency SANA said.

Chimo Osman's children stopped going to school after Turkish shelling struck his home in northeastern Syria, where Kurdish residents fear another military onslaught is imminent.

In recent days, cross-border Turkish artillery fire has targeted positions held by the People's Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria.

In reshuffling his cabinet this week, Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has deepened a rift with the man who appointed him and fed speculation that he intends to run in next year's presidential poll.

Just over two years ago, the 43-year-old Chahed became Tunisia's seventh prime minister since the country's 2011 revolution when he was appointed by President Beji Caid Essebsi.

Israeli police said Thursday at the conclusion of a long-running corruption probe that there was evidence a lawyer for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu committed crimes.

Iraq has won an exemption allowing it to buy Iranian electricity despite U.S. sanctions, as the country plagued by chronic power shortages walks a tightrope between rivals Washington and Tehran.

With US measures imposed Monday taking aim at Iran's banking and energy industries, there were concerns Iraq -- which heavily relies on its eastern neighbor for electricity and consumer goods -- would be caught in the crossfire.

Amnesty International accused Yemeni rebels on Thursday of "deliberate militarisation of hospitals" in the battleground city of Hodeida and called on warring parties to protect civilians.