Hundreds of school teachers and students protested in the Algerian capital on Wednesday amid fears that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika plans to extend his two-decade rule.

Ten Saudi women detained last year in a sweeping crackdown on activists appeared in court on Wednesday, an official said, intensifying scrutiny of the kingdom's human rights record.

US-backed forces said Wednesday the Islamic State group was living its "final moments" after thunderous shelling on its last scrap of land in eastern Syria prompted 3,000 jihadists to surrender.

But the die-hard IS fighters who stayed to defend the remnants of their "caliphate" struck back with a wave of suicide bombings, according to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Wednesday accused Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a "tyrant" who "massacred" Palestinian babies, in the latest exchange between the two leaders.

Unrest at a highly sensitive Jerusalem holy site led Israeli police to shut off access to it on Tuesday after several weeks of tension at the location.

Kurdish-led forces said Tuesday more people were surrendering from the Islamic State group's last scrap of territory in Syria, after overnight air raids and shelling ravaged jihadist outposts.

A ragged tent encampment in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz is all that remains of a once-sprawling IS "caliphate" declared in 2014 across large swaths of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

A Palestinian who ran at Israeli troops with a knife in the flashpoint city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday was shot dead by soldiers, Israel's army said.

Protesters returned to Algeria's streets Tuesday after jubilation over ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's vow not to seek re-election gave way to fears of a plot to prolong his two-decade rule.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged Algerian authorities to organise a "reasonable" transition after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika dropped a bid for a fifth term in office and scrapped upcoming elections.

Turkey on Tuesday denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "blatant racism" after he called Israel the nation-state of "the Jewish people" only, not all its citizens.