A tiny Palestinian village in the Hebron hills could soon cease to exist after a nine-year legal battle with Israeli authorities who say its 167 residents live on an archaeological site.

Authorities in Iraq's Karbala province have voted for the return of all displaced Iraqis whose home areas have been recaptured from the Islamic State group, they announced on Friday.

Saudi authorities on Friday executed a national convicted of murdering a compatriot, in the 101st execution of the year in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said.

The wealthy Gulf state of Qatar has pledged to pay one-month salaries for public sector employees in Gaza, to help "alleviate the suffering" caused by the Israeli blockade, state media said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Friday to offer condolences on the death of his brother, an Israeli official told AFP.

A hospital in Libya's second city Benghazi said Friday it had received the bodies of 14 people killed execution-style, in what the U.N. envoy said was a "war crime."

France will supply weapons to Iraq to support its fight against the Islamic State group, President Francois Hollande said Friday, but ruled out any troop deployment in the country.

A top Israeli official traveled to Chad earlier this month for talks on bolstering ties, the first such visit since ties were severed in 1972, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Foreign ministry director Dore Gold met President Idriss Deby at his palace in the northern Chad on July 14, as Israel is pressing a campaign to improve ties with Africa, the ministry said.

Russian warplanes bombed a remote outpost in Syria used by elite U.S. and British forces last month as well as another site linked to the CIA, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Nearly 40 Syrian soldiers and pro-regime fighters were killed when rebels blew up a tunnel under a government position in Aleppo city, a monitor said Friday.