Private armed guards aboard a famous yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton opened fire on Yemeni Coast Guard members Friday after mistaking them for pirates, sparking a gunfight in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said.

The incident off Yemen shows the danger faced by both shippers and security forces in the waters off the Arab world's poorest country, even as it remains crucial for global commerce.

Israeli security forces said they shot and killed a suspected Palestinian assailant in the West Bank on Thursday, stirring tensions in the occupied territory at a time of unusually high violence.

The Israeli military said it received reports that a Palestinian had tried to carry out a car-ramming attack near the large West Bank settlement of Ariel. Israeli soldiers opened fire at the suspected assailant after they realized he was wielding a knife, the military added. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man killed as 39-year-old Ahmed Taha from the northern Palestinian village of Salfit. No other casualties were reported.

Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis who support a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judiciary have flocked to Jerusalem to rally for the proposal, which has prompted some of the biggest protests in Israel's history.

After 16 weeks of protests against the overhaul that brought parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to a standstill, Thursday marked a rare mobilization of massive public support for the divisive plan.

After paying nearly $100,000 in ransoms to free 10 family members, Khaled Taalou, a member of Iraq's Yazidi minority, is still working to free other missing relatives kidnapped by Islamic State group fighters.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Turkish border guards of shooting, torturing and using excessive force against Syrians seeking to flee their war-racked country into neighboring Turkey.

It urged Ankara to investigate border guards, hold those responsible for "grave human rights violations, including unlawful killings" to account, and end "longstanding impunity for these abuses".

A young man wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with "Dior," women clutching babies wrapped in blankets, children bundled in winter coats. All gingerly stepped from rickety boats into the sturdy craft of the Tunisian Maritime National Guard — and away from their dreams of life in Europe.

Cold, wet and heartbroken, they are among hundreds caught daily in overnight sweeps for migrant boats on the Mediterranean Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial has resumed after a month-long break, refocusing the spotlight on the long-serving leader's legal woes after a wave of protests over his government's plan to overhaul Israel's judiciary.

Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He denies wrongdoing.

Syria has condemned the European Union's new sanctions on Damascus over making and trafficking an amphetamine saying the move was based on lies.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry statement came a day after the EU imposed sanctions on several Syrians, including members of President Bashar Assad's family, blaming them for the production and trafficking of narcotics, notably the amphetamine Captagon.

Syrians living on opposite sides of the largely frozen battle lines dividing their country are watching the accelerating normalization of ties between the government of Bashar Assad and Syria's neighbors through starkly different lenses.

In government-held Syria, residents struggling with ballooning inflation, fuel and electricity shortages hope the rapprochement will bring more trade and investment and ease a crippling economic crisis.

Russia's defense minister has hosted his counterparts from Iran, Syria and Turkey on Tuesday for talks that were part of the Kremlin's efforts to help broker a rapprochement between the Turkish and Syrian governments.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the talks focused on "practical steps to strengthen security in the Syrian Arab Republic and to normalize Syrian-Turkish relations."