The United Arab Emirates is transporting humanitarian aid to residents in the war-torn Libyan city of Benghazi, the Emirates Red Crescent announced on Wednesday.

The head of Libya's U.N.-backed unity government arrived Wednesday in Tripoli, but international hopes of a peaceful power handover were dealt a swift blow as the unrecognized authorities demanded his departure.

Fayez al-Sarraj, a businessman named prime minister-designate under a U.N.-brokered power-sharing deal in December, arrived by sea with a naval escort along with several members of his cabinet.

Israeli army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot sent a letter Wednesday warning troops to use appropriate force, after a soldier was caught on video shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant.

President Bashar Assad said Wednesday that any transitional government in Syria should include both the regime and opposition, as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged greater efforts to tackle the country's refugee crisis.

In an interview published Wednesday, Assad told Russia's RIA Novosti state news agency it would be "logical for there to be independent forces, opposition forces and forces loyal to the government represented" in any transitional body.

An Egyptian court sentenced 23 supporters of Mohamed Morsi to lengthy prison terms on Wednesday over a violent protest against the Islamist president's ouster in 2013, judicial officials said.

Fifteen defendants were jailed for life, three for 15 years and five for 10.

Loyalist forces pushed Al-Qaeda out of parts of Aden on Wednesday in a new drive against the jihadists in Yemen's second city where the internationally recognized government is based, military sources said.

Troops and militia retook the central prison and deployed on main roads across the Mansura residential district after a three-hour gunbattle with the jihadists, the sources said.

Saudi Arabia executed two citizens convicted of murder on Wednesday, raising to 81 the number of death sentences carried out in the ultra-conservative kingdom this year.

Dhafer and Hussein al-Mutliq were found guilty of killing fellow Saudis Azeb and Mahdi al-Moamer in a dispute between the two families, the interior ministry said.

Israeli authorities are investigating Interior Minister Aryeh Deri for alleged corruption, local media said Wednesday of the ultra-Orthodox party leader who has already served prison time for graft.

Deri confirmed on his Twitter account that he was under investigation, saying he had requested that a gag order on the publication of his name be lifted and that he was ready to "respond to all questions."

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called for greater global efforts to tackle the Syrian refugee crisis, as he opened a conference on securing resettlement places for nearly half a million of those displaced by the five-year conflict. 

"We are here to address the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time," Ban told the conference in Geneva. "This demands an exponential increase in global solidarity."

The man accused of hijacking an Egyptian plane and diverting it to Cyprus has said he acted out of desperation to see his ex-wife and children, as he was remanded into custody Wednesday.

A judge in Larnaca on the island's southern coast ordered Egyptian Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa held for eight days during his first court appearance after Tuesday's hijacking.