Saudi police have killed a wanted "terrorist" in the Shiite-majority eastern district of Qatif, where there has been a string of attacks on security forces, newspapers said Saturday.

The UN Syria envoy closed the latest round of sputtering peace talks Friday insisting "incremental progress" was made, driving hope that face-to-face negotiations between rebels and the Damascus regime may soon be possible.

A Palestinian was killed Friday during clashes with Israeli forces at a refugee camp near the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

More than a million people were displaced from Mosul by the battle in the Iraqi city against the Islamic State group, but nearly 200,000 have returned home, the U.N. said Friday. 

Jerusalem's top Islamic cleric was released after being detained by Israeli police Friday following an attack at a sensitive holy site that killed two Israeli policemen and three Arab Israeli gunmen, he told AFP.

Two foreign women were killed on Friday and four others were wounded when an assailant stabbed them at an Egyptian Red Sea beach resort,  officials said.

The governor of Red Sea province, where the resort of Hurghada is located, said two "foreign residents" of the city were killed in the attack, a cabinet statement said.

Turkey and Qatar on Friday insisted Ankara would keep a new military base in the emirate, rejecting demands from other Gulf countries for the facility to be closed.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone following Friday's attack near an ultra-sensitive holy site that killed two Israeli police, with three Arab assailants also shot dead.

US-backed forces captured a new district from jihadists in Syria's Raqa but struggled to hold their positions against suicide car bombers, a fighter in the city and a monitor said.

Saudi Arabia on Friday hailed the Iraq government's recapture of Mosul city from Islamic State group jihadists, stressing its solidarity with Baghdad in combating "terrorism" despite their rocky relations.