The United States has warned against any normalization of ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and insisted his reconciliation with Hamas -- also a pariah for Washington -- showed his "isolation."

Greece on Friday launched operations at a new international pilot training center created in partnership with Israel, as it tries to build on its relative air power advantage over regional rival Turkey.

Israeli defense contractor Elbit, which finalized a $1.65 billion deal with Greece's government, assisted by Israel, last year, will help run the facility located on an air force base outside the southern Greek city of Kalamata.

Experts with the U.N.'s top human rights body have decried Israel's occupation of territories Palestinians seek for their future state, saying it was "unlawful under international law" and increasingly entrenched.

The experts, members of a special commission, also appealed to the International Court of Justice to offer its opinion on the matter. Their statement came in a report to the U.N. General Assembly, which is to discuss the report next week.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said early Friday that a Palestinian youth died shortly after being wounded by Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank as Israeli-Palestinian tensions surge.

The increase in tension is over Israeli raids and an uptick in shooting attacks by Palestinians.

A Russian delegation in Syria Thursday took 38 children from families of suspected Islamic State (IS) group members for repatriation, a Kurdish official and AFP correspondents said. 

Jewish settlers stormed through a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said Thursday, throwing stones at Palestinian cars and using pepper spray on troops who were trying to disperse the settlers.

The settler rampage late Wednesday comes days after a similar incident in the same area and as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are surging over Israeli raids in the West Bank and an uptick in shooting attacks by Palestinians.

The head of the United Nations' World Food Program is renewing pressure on oil-rich Gulf countries to give his agency more help to deal with mounting humanitarian crises.

WFP Executive Director David Beasley's comments on Thursday followed a meeting with Development Minister Svenja Schulze of Germany, the agency's second-biggest donor. Schulze also stressed that "we simply need more countries to give money" as the global food crisis exacerbated by Russia's war in Ukraine and rising prices grows.

Staffers at the World Health Organization's Syrian office have alleged that their boss mismanaged millions of dollars, plied government officials with gifts -- including computers, gold coins and cars -- and acted frivolously as COVID-19 swept the country.

More than 100 confidential documents, messages and other materials obtained by The Associated Press show WHO officials told investigators that the agency's Syria representative, Dr. Akjemal Magtymova, engaged in abusive behavior, pressured WHO staff to sign contracts with high-ranking Syrian government politicians and consistently misspent WHO and donor funds.

French cement company Lafarge has pleaded guilty to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group to keep a plant operational in Syria — at a time when the militant group was engaged in torturing kidnapped Westerners — and agreed to pay roughly $778 million in penalties.

The Justice Department accused the company of turning a blind eye to the conduct of the Islamic State, negotiating a revenue-sharing agreement with the militant group as it was acquiring new territory and as Syria was mired in a brutal civil war. The company's actions, already investigated by French law enforcement authorities, occurred before it merged with Swiss company Holcim to form the world's largest cement maker.

An emaciated little girl lies motionless on a hospital bed and struggles to breathe. Her body is covered with sores. She can barely open her eyes.

Hafsa Ahmed is about 2. About a dozen other children in the red-brick hospital in this southern Yemeni city are also dying of starvation.