U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday voiced regret at Palestinian threats to end security coordination if Israel annexes occupied territory in line with President Donald Trump's Middle East plan.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned that Israeli annexations in the occupied West Bank would spell the end of all security coordination, as international opposition to the plans grows.

Algerian courts have handed tough jail sentences to three opposition activists whose Facebook posts they deemed potentially damaging to the national interest, human rights groups said Wednesday.

One of Syria's wealthiest businessmen who is a cousin of President Bashar Assad said Tuesday the government has ordered the seizure of his assets and barred him from doing business with the state for five years, escalating a dispute that has been deeply mixed in family affairs.

The latest decisions against Rami Makhlouf come after weeks of highly publicized and unusual disputes over outstanding payments that the government is seeking from the country's largest telecommunication company, which he heads.

Britain and the United States on Tuesday urged Russia to stop sending mercenaries to the conflict in Libya, after a recent U.N. report confirmed the presence of Russian and Syrian fighters in the country. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lawyers asked a Jerusalem court on Tuesday for their client to be exempted from attending the start of his impending corruption trial.  

One rocket hit near the US embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday morning, security sources told AFP, the first to land in the high-security zone in weeks.

While a ceasefire in Syria has reduced combat between rebels and government forces, mercenaries from the two sides are still fighting in Libya on behalf of their Russian and Turkish backers.

Israel's new foreign minister said Monday that U.S, President Donald Trump's Middle East peace proposal offered an "historic opportunity" but that regional peace deals must be maintained during its implementation. 

China is sending a team to Israel to repatriate the body of its ambassador who died at his home in Tel Aviv, reportedly from natural causes, an Israeli diplomatic source said Monday.