The cycle has become grimly familiar.

Over three days, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed at least 28 people, including senior Palestinian militants, as well as children as young as 4 years old. Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired over 600 rockets toward Israel, killing one person, setting off warning sirens as far north as the coastal city of Tel Aviv and sending tens of thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters.

French prosecutors are seeking to send former President Nicolas Sarkozy and 12 others to trial on charges that his 2007 presidential campaign received millions in illegal financing from the government of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

After a decade of investigation, the French national financial prosecutor's office announced its decision Friday to seek a trial. It's now up to judges to determine whether to move ahead. In general, judges in France follow such prosecutors' requests, though not always.

Israel and Gaza militants traded heavy fire Friday as hopes faded of securing a truce to end days of fighting that have killed dozens, all but one of them Palestinian.

The violence has been met with international calls for de-escalation, with the European Union pushing Thursday for an "immediate comprehensive ceasefire."

Foreign ministers of France, Germany, Jordan and Egypt on Thursday called for an end to the violence between Israel and Gaza militants, who have been trading heavy fire for three days.

"The bloodletting must end now," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock after hosting talks with her counterparts.

Warring parties in Yemen are "serious" about ending a devastating eight-year-old conflict but it is impossible to predict when direct talks, much less a breakthrough, might happen, Saudi Arabia's envoy told AFP.

"Everybody is serious. Serious means everybody is looking for peace," Mohammed al-Jaber said in his first extensive comments after meeting with Huthi leaders in Sanaa last month. But he added: "It's not easy to be clear about next steps."

A second Syrian police officer has died following a car bombing at a Damascus police station, the interior ministry said Thursday, a day after the blast that was claimed by Islamic State group jihadists.

The ministry said Wednesday that a vehicle exploded at the Barzeh police station in the north of the capital, killing a lieutenant colonel and wounding four others, adding that an investigation was ongoing.

Tunisian authorities have opened an investigation into a shooting attack at a synagogue that killed two Jewish pilgrims and three members of the country's security forces. The motive of the gunman, whom guards killed before he could enter the building on the island of Djerba, remained unclear.

The island's historic Ghriba synagogue, thought to be one of the world's oldest Jewish temples, is a popular pilgrimage destination, but it was unknown if the assailant, a member of the Tunisian National Guard, specifically targeted Jews in Tuesday's attack.

Israel's army and Gaza militants traded heavy cross-border fire overnight, with at least 22 Palestinians killed over two days in the worst escalation of violence to hit the coastal territory in months.

Sirens in the Tel Aviv area and Israel's south warned of incoming rockets, with an AFP reporter observing launches from Gaza as Israeli officials said Egypt was working on a possible truce with the militant group Islamic Jihad.

Saudi Arabia has invited Syrian President Bashar Assad to the upcoming Arab League summit in the oil-rich kingdom, the Syrian president's office said on Wednesday. The news comes as Damascus continues to slowly return to the Arab fold, following a 12-year-period of political isolation.

Assad received the invitation days after the Arab League restored Syria's membership into the organization during a meeting in Cairo on Sunday. Syria's membership was suspended for brutally cracking down on mass protests against Assad in 2011. Since then, the uprising turned into a vicious civil war that killed nearly a half million people and displaced half of the country's pre-war population of 23 million.

Israel and Gaza militants traded cross-border fire Wednesday, renewing deadly violence a day after Israeli strikes killed 15 people in the Palestinian territory.

Smoke billowed from the densely-populated coastal territory after Israel announced it was targeting rocket launching infrastructure held by Islamic Jihad militants.