President Donald Trump on Thursday accused the Palestinians of disrespecting the United States and threatened to withhold aid worth hundreds of millions of dollars until they accede to US-brokered talks.

In a significant sharpening of his rhetoric against the leadership in Ramallah, Trump said the Palestinians had "disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them."

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley took direct aim at Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, telling the United Nations Security Council that he lacked the courage needed for a peace deal.

Since the start of Syria's war in 2011, numerous efforts to halt the conflict through diplomacy have failed. 

As negotiators meet in Vienna on Thursday for two days of U.N.-backed talks over ending Syria's bloody war, Western diplomats are ratcheting up the pressure for a solution -- even as Russia pushes its own round of peace talks.

His house was damaged by Turkish bombardment and most neighbors have fled, but elderly Abu Jiwan says he refuses to abandon his northern Syrian hometown as long as he's still breathing.

With a traditional red-and-white Kurdish shawl wrapped around his head, the 70-year-old gestured towards his home in the town of Jandairis, freshly hit by Turkish shelling.

International rights groups said Thursday they fear for the health behind bars of Bahrain's most high-profile activist, Nabeel Rajab, condemning the Gulf state over its seven-year crackdown on dissent.

The United Nations demanded Thursday the immediate surrender of a Benghazi commander wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges after evidence emerged suggesting he had carried out new summary executions in Libya.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday vowed Turkey's campaign against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria would press on for as long as required, after telephone talks with Donald Trump failed to douse soaring tensions with Washington.

The United Nations embarked on fresh efforts Thursday to jump-start Syrian peace talks that Western countries and the opposition fear are being undermined by a separate Russian diplomatic push.

The U.N. aid coordinator in Yemen announced Wednesday he was leaving his post just days after the U.N. envoy for the war-torn country also said he was stepping down.