Key Syrian government ally Iran has congratulated President Bashar al-Assad on his landslide election victory, describing it as a "big step" towards restoring peace after a decade of civil war.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has won a fourth term in office with 95 percent of the vote in a ballot dismissed abroad as a "farce".

Thousands of Hamas fighters held a military parade Friday in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, a week after a ceasefire with Israel took effect in the devastated coastal enclave.

Russia on Friday welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's "decisive" victory after he claimed re-election with a landslide win in a vote criticized by the opposition and Western nations.

The U.N. Human Rights Council decided Thursday to create an open-ended international investigation into violations surrounding the latest Gaza violence, and into "systematic" abuses in the Palestinian territories and inside Israel.

Many of the Syrian fighters deployed, sometimes forcibly, in foreign conflict theatres such as Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh are robbed of their wages, said a report released Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed home from Jordan Thursday after a whistlestop Middle East tour on which he called for regional cooperation to consolidate a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza militants.

Israel's recent barrage of deadly airstrikes on Gaza might be war crimes, the U.N. rights chief warned Thursday, adding she had seen no evidence the attacked buildings were used for military purposes.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas vowed Wednesday not to touch "a single cent" of international aid to rebuild Gaza following its war with Israel that ravaged the enclave it rules.

Yemeni officials demanded answers Wednesday after an Associated Press report highlighted a mysterious air base being built on a Yemeni island in one of the world's crucial maritime chokepoints.

A lawmaker asked Yemen's internationally recognized government if the United Arab Emirates built the facility as data in the AP report links the UAE to the construction.