Qatar's ruler on Thursday personally thanked Iran's President Hassan Rouhani for his country's support during an almost year-long Gulf crisis, which has seen the emirate cut adrift by neighboring former allies.

In a telephone conversation, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and the Iranian leader also discussed ways of "boosting" relations between the two countries, according to a statement from Qatar News Agency.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is fueling "unrealistic" hopes of return after 70 years of exodus and is therefore helping keep the Mideast conflict alive, Switzerland's foreign minister said Thursday.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)was established after the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948, when around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled.

An Israeli court on Thursday rejected Human Rights Watch's request for its country director to remain in Israel until an appeal against his expulsion is heard, the affected official told AFP.

The Arab League called Thursday for an international probe into alleged crimes by Israeli forces against Palestinians following mass protests on the Gaza border that saw dozens of demonstrators killed.

Tens of thousands have protested along Gaza's border with Israel since March 30 calling for Palestinian refugees to be able to return to their homes now inside Israel.

NATO-member Denmark said Thursday its special forces taking part in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq would be withdrawn following the IS defeat.

Shunned by both their Western governments and their Kurdish jailers, foreign men and women who joined the Islamic State group are lingering in detention in northern Syria.

The University of Aden has condemned the murder of its dean of sciences and her son and granddaughter, who were killed in her apartment in the de facto government capital of Yemen.

Egypt's army said Thursday it killed 19 presumed jihadists in the Sinai peninsula during a large-scale "anti-terror" operation.

A Yemen government offensive backed by ground troops and warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition has displaced tens of thousands of people along the country's western coast, Amnesty International said Thursday.

A senior member of Gaza's Hamas rulers has said that all but a dozen of the 62 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire during Gaza border protests this week were members of the Islamist group.