Israel said Thursday it had suspended entry permits for 83,000 Palestinians during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan following a shooting in Tel Aviv that killed four people.

"All permits for Ramadan, especially permits for family visits from Judea and Samaria to Israel, are frozen," said a statement from COGAT, the unit which manages civilian affairs in the occupied West Bank.

Israel charged four French immigrants with fraud on Wednesday over a $10 million scam of major companies in which they are accused of posing as representatives of firms including Chanel and Bosch.

The defendants are accused of building "a worldwide network of fraud based in Israel," with apartments, technological equipment and European bank accounts, the justice ministry said.

Iraqi government forces fighting to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State group seized a southern neighborhood of the city on Wednesday, officials said.

Led by the country's counter-terrorism service, Iraqi forces and allied militias backed by air support from a U.S.-led coalition began an operation on May 23 to wrest the city from IS.

Syrian government air strikes on rebel-held neighborhoods of divided second city Aleppo killed at least 15 civilians on Wednesday, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 10 of the dead came in raids just outside the Al-Bayan hospital in the Shaar neighborhood.

Syrian rebels reopened a vital supply line by capturing two villages Wednesday from the Islamic State group as it came under pressure on a range of fronts in Syria and Iraq.

IS has controlled large areas of both countries since declaring its self-styled "caliphate" in 2014 but is losing territory in the face of separate assaults.

An EgyptAir flight from Cairo to Beijing made an emergency landing in Uzbekistan on Wednesday after a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax, the airline said.

Uzbek authorities checked the Airbus A330 and found no explosives on board, EgyptAir chairman Safwat Musallam told AFP.

Syria's defense minister is to hold Tehran talks with his Iranian and Russian counterparts on Thursday as government forces press an offensive against the Islamic State group, state media said.

The United Nations was forced Tuesday to defend its decision to remove the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen from a blacklist of child rights violators after rights groups expressed dismay.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric insisted that no final decision had been taken, and that the coalition was taken off the list pending a review that is expected to be completed before August.

Building permits have been approved for 82 settler homes in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem under a plan that previously drew strong criticism from the United States, an NGO said Tuesday.

The 82 units in two buildings are part of plans announced in 2010 to build 1,600 settler homes in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem.

The commander of Iraq's operation to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State group said Tuesday victory was days away, but progress was slowed by huge numbers of bombs and traps.

"The security forces are advancing towards central Fallujah from the southern side but doing so cautiously, to preserve civilian lives," Lieutenant-General Abdelwahab al-Saadi told AFP.