The Palestinian Authority has announced a multi-million-dollar fund to support residents of the Jordan Valley, just days before Israel intends to start annexing the strategic swathe of the occupied West Bank.

Tunisian youths clashed with police overnight in a town in Tunisia's deprived south, where a protest movement is demanding jobs and services, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

Syrian air defenses responded to Israeli attacks on military posts in a central province early on Wednesday, shortly after similar attacks in the south killed two soldiers, the defense ministry in Damascus said.

State media cited a military official as saying the attack targeted posts in rural areas of Hama province. Air defenses were activated and reportedly intercepted a number of the incoming missiles.

Two Syrian soldiers were killed and four others wounded in Israeli strikes Tuesday in the southern province of Sweida, a military source said, reporting other raids elsewhere in the war-torn country. 

The Arab League on Tuesday pressed Libya's warring parties and their foreign backers to halt fighting and restart peace talks, as regional tensions threaten a new escalation in the oil-rich country's years-long conflict.

Following an emergency meeting requested by Egypt, Arab League foreign ministers warned against a "continuation of military action that alters existing front lines." The statement came as a coalition of Turkish-backed forces based in the capital, Tripoli, pushed toward the key coastal city of Sirte.

Five people were sentenced Tuesday in Algeria to between six months and a year behind bars after taking part in a banned demonstration, prisoners' rights group CNLD said.

Baby Omar Yaghi was eight months old when he died, unable to travel from Gaza to Israel for life-saving heart surgery after Palestinian officials cut coordination.

The Saudi-led military coalition said Tuesday it had intercepted and destroyed drones and missiles launched against the kingdom by Huthi rebels in Yemen, including one fired towards the capital Riyadh.

Coronavirus cases in the West Bank have more than doubled in a week, the Palestinian Authority said Monday after warning a second wave of infections could be worse than the first.

The main al-Qaida-linked group in Syria on Monday detained one of its own former commanders who had defected and set up his own hard-line outfit earlier this year after coming out against a cease-fire, opposition activists said.

The activists said a big force from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, raided the house of Jamal Zeina, better known as Abu Malek al-Talli, on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Idlib and detained him.