When Syrian rebels attacked a hideout in mid-October in the southern Syrian village of Jassem, they had no idea that a militant commander who was killed in the operation was the leader of the Islamic State group.

Syrian opposition activists and state media apparently did not know that the man killed was IS leader Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and identified him as Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi.

Two months after Yemen's truce expired, fighting largely remains on hold but a series of attacks by Huthi rebels could have serious repercussions for a country crippled by war.

Israel on Thursday announced it has stripped a Palestinian lawyer of his Jerusalem residency and plans to deport him to France, saying the man is an activist in a banned militant group.

The decision by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked underscored the fragile status of Jerusalem's Palestinians, who hold revocable Israeli residency rights but with few exceptions are not citizens. It also threatened to trigger a diplomatic spat with France, which has argued against the deportation.

Arab football fans have flooded social media with satire, celebrating unexpected victories and poking fun at their own misfortunes as Qatar hosts the Middle East's first World Cup.

Argentina star Lionel Messi was the butt of region-wide jokes after his team's shock 2-1 defeat by Saudi Arabia last week.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians on Thursday, including at least one militant leader, during a West Bank arrest raid that sparked gun battles, said Palestinian officials and Israel's army.

Muhammad Ayman Al-Saadi, 26, and Naim Jamal Zubaidi, 27, were "killed by the Israeli occupation bullets at dawn today during its aggression on Jenin camp," a Palestinian health ministry statement said.

The leader of the Islamic State group, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in battle recently, the group's spokesman said in audio released Wednesday. He gave no further details.

Al-Qurayshi is the second IS leader to be killed this year at a time when the extremist group has been trying to rise again with its sleeper cells carrying out deadly attacks in Iraq and Syria. Its affiliate in Afghanistan also claimed attacks that killed dozens in recent months.

Israeli troops on Wednesday shot and killed a Palestinian man during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials announced, as a recent spike in deadly violence showed no signs of slowing.

The Israeli army said it entered the village of Yabad in the northern West Bank to arrest a wanted militant. It said armed men opened fire and lobbed explosives at troops, who returned fire.

An Israeli minister on Wednesday condemned Netflix over a decision to stream a Jordanian film depicting alleged atrocities against Palestinians during the 1948 conflict that coincided with Israel's creation.

Avigdor Lieberman, the secular right-winger serving as finance minister in Israel's outgoing government, has also suggested withdrawing state funding from a theatre in Jaffa that plans to show the film.

Syria has received two million doses of cholera vaccines, the first to reach the country during a months-long outbreak, the country's health ministry said Wednesday.

The war-torn country has been suffering from a cholera outbreak since September and has struggled to contain it due to its devastated water and health infrastructure. Syria's Health Ministry has documented 1,556 cases and 49 deaths since then.

The debate over who owns ancient artifacts has been an increasing challenge to museums across Europe and America, and the spotlight has fallen on the most visited piece in the British Museum: The Rosetta stone.

The inscriptions on the dark grey granite slab became the seminal breakthrough in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics after it was taken from Egypt by forces of the British empire in 1801.