Militants from the Islamic State group launched sophisticated attacks in Syria and Iraq, including an attempt to break into a prison where suspected extremists are being held by U.S.-backed fighters, officials said Friday. Dozens of people were killed.

The separate attacks are believed to be some of the largest since IS lost the final sliver of territory it held nearly three years ago. In recent months, IS sleeper cells have become more active in both countries, claiming attacks that killed scores of Iraqis and Syrians.

A rocket attack on a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters has killed six civilians and wounded over a dozen people, Syrian rescuers and a war monitor said. Both blamed U.S-backed Syrian Kurdish forces for the attack.

The town of Afrin has been under control of Turkey and its allied Syrian opposition fighters since 2018, following a Turkey-backed military operation that pushed Syrian Kurdish fighters and thousands of Kurdish residents from the area.

President Joe Biden says the U.S. is considering restoring its designation of Yemen's Houthis as a terrorist group.

Biden's comment, made at a White House news conference, came after a cross-border strike Monday that killed three people in the United Arab Emirates. The Houthis, a former militia group that now controls much of Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack, which Emiratis say used both missiles and drones, and started fires at a fuel depot and international airport.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki criticized U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday for moving too slowly to reverse all of the Trump administration's adverse policies against the Palestinians and not using Washington's special relationship to pressure Israel to abandon "its rejection of a two-state solution and peace negotiations."

Malki told the U.N. Security Council there were hopes that the end of Donald Trump's administration and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "would be enough to pave the way for renewed momentum for peace."

Israel's police chief said Thursday that he had ordered an extensive investigation into a newspaper's claims that the force had used controversial Israeli spyware to hack the phones of protesters, mayors and other citizens under investigation without proper authorization.

Earlier this week a Hebrew-language business paper published an investigative report claiming that the police had used the NSO Group's Pegasus hacking software to surveil leaders of a protest movement against then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as a raft of other alleged misuses of the technology.

Israel is hoping the U.N. General Assembly will unanimously adopt a resolution rejecting and condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies "to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion."

The 193-member world body is scheduled to vote Thursday on the resolution, which is strongly supported by Germany.

German prosecutors accused a Syrian doctor Wednesday of torturing detainees and killing one of them while working in military hospitals in his war-torn homeland, on the first day of a landmark crimes against humanity trial in Frankfurt.

Israeli police on Wednesday evicted Palestinian residents from a disputed property in a flashpoint Jerusalem neighborhood and demolished the building, days after a tense standoff.

The predawn demolition took place in Sheikh Jarrah, an east Jerusalem neighborhood where attempts by Jewish settlers to evict longtime Palestinian residents have sparked protests that last year helped lead to an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza militants.

Israel has extended the detention of a Palestinian teenager with a rare neuromuscular disorder who has been held without charge for a year in what authorities refer to as administrative detention, his father said.

Amal Nakhleh, who was detained in January 2021 and turned 18 this week, was one of just a handful of minors being held in administrative detention. He had a tumor removed from his lung in 2020 and suffers from myasthenia gravis, a nerve disorder that causes severe muscle fatigue.

Airlines across the world, including the long-haul carrier Emirates, rushed Wednesday to cancel or change flights heading into the U.S. over an ongoing dispute about the rollout of 5G mobile phone technology near American airports.

The issue appeared to particularly impact the Boeing 777, a long-range, wide-body aircraft used by carriers worldwide. Two Japanese airlines directly named the aircraft as being particularly affected by the 5G signals as they announced cancellations and changes to their schedules.