Four men move deftly and carefully across a field, their silhouettes outlined by the light of a full moon, bearing a stretcher.

Five lives are at stake as they hasten to carry to safety in nearby Turkey a man shot during a demonstration in the Syrian city of Hama against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Wednesday pressed President Bashar al-Assad to quickly answer proposals to end Syria's strife ahead of a new diplomatic surge aimed at passing a Security Council resolution on the crisis.

Annan, who on Friday will brief the U.N. Security Council on his mission, announced that he has received one response from Assad's government.

France has sent its senior human rights envoy to countries bordering Syria to collect evidence to level against the regime in the International Criminal Court, diplomats said Wednesday.

Ambassador Francois Zimeray is "in the region" to collect testimony from Syrian refugees and witnesses to the fighting in order that France can lodge a complaint with the court against Bashar al-Assad's regime, they said.

Representatives of Yemen's ultra-conservative Salafist community agreed on Wednesday to form a political union, they announced at the end of a two-day conference.

"The conference has decided to form a political entity -- Yemen's Al-Rashad (righteousness) Union," they said in a statement.

Kuwait agreed a $500 million deal with Baghdad during a visit by Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday, ending a decades-long debt dispute that saw an Iraqi Airways flight impounded in London.

The agreement comes amid a two-day trip by Maliki and several of his senior ministers ahead of an Arab League summit in Baghdad at the end of the month, the first to be held in the Iraqi capital since now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Two Turkish journalists from an Istanbul-based newspaper have disappeared in neighboring Syria, the paper said Wednesday, asking Damascus and Ankara for help to find them.

The newspaper Milat said in a brief statement that it had not had contact with journalist Adem Ozkose and cameraman Hamit Coskun for five days.

The latest conflict in Gaza put Hamas in a delicate position, forcing it to weather criticism from other groups as it sought a quick truce to avoid a full-blown war, analysts said.

The four-day flare-up that began with Israel's assassination of the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees quickly turned into tit-for-tat violence, with Israel launching multiple air strikes as militants hit back with rockets.

Italy said Wednesday it was closing its embassy in Damascus and repatriating some staff to protest Syria's "unacceptable" crackdown on the opposition.

"Italy today suspended the activities of its embassy in Damascus and repatriated some personnel," the foreign ministry said in a communiqué.

International mediator Kofi Annan confirmed Wednesday that he has received a response from the Syrian regime, after he made "concrete" proposals earlier to Damascus on ways to halt the crisis.

"The Joint Special Envoy (JSE) for Syria Kofi Annan has now received a response from the Syrian authorities. The JSE has questions and is seeking answers," said his spokesman in a statement.

Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz went to Algeria for a vacation after the results of medical tests he underwent in the United States were "reassuring," the royal palace announced on Wednesday.

Prince Nayef, the kingdom's veteran internal security czar, "has finished previously scheduled medical tests in (the U.S. city of) Cleveland with reassuring results," said the statement carried by state news agency SPA.