The U.N. envoy for Yemen warned that the risk of a return to fighting "is real," urging warring parties to accept a longer extension of the current ceasefire due to expire next month.

Hans Grundberg's stark warning late Tuesday came after he met in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, with Rashad al-Alimi, head of the internationally recognized presidential council, and in Oman's capital of Muscat with Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the chief negotiator of the Houthi rebels. He also met with Saudi and Omani officials to push for a cease-fire extension.

Three rockets were fired at the Iraqi capital's Green Zone on Wednesday, wounding four security force personnel as parliament was in session, a statement by the security forces said.

Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been named prime minister, a post traditionally held by the king, in a government shuffle announced Tuesday.

Iran was accused of killing seven people and wounding 28 in cross-border strikes Wednesday against Kurdish factions in Iraq that have deplored an ongoing protest crackdown in the Islamic republic.

Three Palestinians were killed Wednesday during an Israeli West Bank raid targeting alleged militants, including the brother of a man blamed for a deadly attack in Tel Aviv, the Palestinian health ministry said.

With the cost of living surging, free hot bread distribution for the poor has been introduced in Dubai, a rich Gulf emirate where millionaires rub shoulders with hard-working migrants.

Tunisian police on Monday arrested the mayor of a town where a fruit seller committed suicide after his scales were seized by council officials, sparking protests, a judicial spokesman said.

Mohamed Amine Dridi, 25, hanged himself on Saturday two days after the electronic scales he used on his fruit and vegetable stall were taken, Tunisian media reported.

A year after fleeing the West Bank, a nephew of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has returned to Gaza and is challenging his uncle's embattled successor, 86-year-old president Mahmud Abbas.

Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric who was seen as the spiritual leader of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, died on Monday at the age of 96, according to his official website.

He died in the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar, where he had been living in exile following the military's overthrow of a Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt in 2013. Al-Qaradawi had been tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard on Monday unleashed a wave of drone strikes and artillery, targeting what Tehran says are bases of Iranian Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, a semiofficial news agency reported.

It was the second such cross-border assault since the weekend, at a time when Iran is convulsing with protests over the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who was been detained by the nation's morality police.