Violence and military operations claimed the lives of more than 16,000 civilians in Iraq last year, a research group that tracks civilian deaths in Iraq said Thursday, making it one of the deadliest years for war-weary Iraqis since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

In its annual report, the London-based Iraqi Body Count reported that 16,361 civilian Iraqis died in 2016, with the northern province of Nineveh the worst hit at 7,431 people killed. The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, was next with 3,714 civilians killed, the research showed.

The leader of the European Union's presidency says that record numbers of migrants will try to cross the Mediterranean this spring and he wants the EU to work with Libya now to stem the flow.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said Thursday that "we will have a crisis."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called this weekend's Middle East peace conference in Paris a "fraud" on Thursday, with his government refusing to play any role in the meeting.

"This conference is a fraud, a Palestinian fraud supported by France, the aim of which is to adopt additional anti-Israeli positions," Netanyahu said during a meeting with the Norwegian foreign minister, according to his office.

Syrian government air strikes killed at least six civilians, including four children, in Aleppo province on Thursday, despite a fragile two-week-old truce, a monitor said.

In neighbouring Idlib province, at least 22 jihadists were killed in air strikes over the past 24 hours, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In the shadow of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City lies the "African Quarter" — home to a little-known community of nearly 50 Arab families of African descent.

Descended from Muslim pilgrims from a variety of African countries, they now consider themselves proud Palestinians, despite widespread poverty and occasional discrimination from both Palestinians and Israelis. Several have even participated in violent attacks against Israel.

Islamic State jihadists are using small commercial drones to attack Iraqi security forces in the battle for Mosul, a US commander said Wednesday.

The Syrian government has reached a deal for the army to enter a rebel-held region near Damascus and restore the capital's water supply, the provincial governor said Wednesday.

A car bombing Wednesday in southern Yemen claimed by al-Qaida seriously wounded a senior security official and killed one of his guards, a security source said.

Arabs across Israel closed businesses and schools on Wednesday in a one-day strike to protest against the demolition of Arab homes built without the required, but hard-to-get, permits.

An Egyptian court froze the assets of two NGOs and their founders on Wednesday, in a controversial probe into civil society groups that has been criticized by the United Nations.