The United Nations will push for a nationwide cease-fire in Syria even after bursts of fighting in the last rebel-held region have punctured a two-year truce there, killing hundreds, a U.N. envoy said Monday.

Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, spoke to reporters after meeting the foreign minister in Damascus. Syria's economic situation is "extremely difficult as close to 15 million people are in need for humanitarian assistance," he said.

Iraq's newly-elected President Abdul Latif Rashid pledged Monday on taking office to throw his weight behind efforts to rapidly form a strong new government.

"The Iraqi people expect a new government to be formed rapidly, and that it be efficient and united," Rashid said on his inauguration at the presidential palace in Baghdad.

Saudi Arabia has rejected US accusations of aligning itself with Russia amid the Ukraine war by making oil production cuts to drive up crude prices, insisting it was purely a business decision.

"We are astonished by the accusations that the kingdom is standing with Russia in its war with Ukraine," the Saudi defense minister, Prince Khaled bin Salman, tweeted late Sunday.

With the World Cup in Qatar just weeks away, the country was selected Monday as host of the 2023 Asian Cup by the Asian Football Confederation.

Qatar beat bids from South Korea and Indonesia in a short-notice contest to replace China and host a tournament that could yet be played in 2024.

Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis: Yemen's seven years of brutal civil war have caused an explosion of mental illness overwhelming the basic health care services.

"We try to provide treatment, but we cannot treat everyone", said Adel Melhi, director of a psychiatric hospital in the rebel-blockaded city of Taez, one of the places hardest hit by the conflict.

Saudi Arabia's push for oil production cuts has placed new strain on its stormy relationship with the United States, though analysts say any predictions of an all-out break are premature.

The move last week by OPEC+ -- composed of the Riyadh-led OPEC cartel and an additional group of 10 exporters headed by Russia -- would reduce global output by up to two million barrels per day from November.

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen has blamed Houthi rebels for the failure to renew a six-month-long truce and called on the warring parties to demonstrate "leadership, compromise and flexibility."

Hans Grundberg urged them to quickly renew and expand the truce deal that brought the longest period of calm to Yemen since its devastating civil war began in 2014.

A group of Jewish settlers has rampaged through a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank, attacking shops and residents with stones and iron bars, according to Palestinian reports and amateur video from the scene. Over 40 Palestinians were reported wounded.

It was the latest violence in the northern West Bank, where the Israeli military has been conducting nightly arrest raids against suspected Palestinian militants.

Two Palestinians including a doctor were killed Friday in an Israeli raid in the flashpoint city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Dr Abdullah al-Ahmad "succumbed to a bullet wound that pierced his head, fired by the occupation (Israeli) soldiers", the ministry said in a statement.

New details on the Islamic State group's former detention centers for foreign hostages in Syria and on grave sites offer clues on where victims may be buried, a rights group said Thursday.