The death toll from a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels climbed to at least 82 detainees, the rebels and an aid group said Saturday. Internet access in the Arab world's poorest country remained largely down.

The airstrike in northern Saada province Friday was part of an intense air and ground offensive that marked an escalation in Yemen's yearslong civil war. The conflict pits the internationally recognized government, aided by the Saudi-led coalition, against the Iranian-backed rebels.

Fighting raged for a third day Saturday between the Islamic State group and Kurdish forces in Syria after IS attacked a prison housing jihadists, in violence that has claimed over 70 lives, a monitor said.

Israel's attorney general said Thursday he was launching an investigation into Israeli police's use of phone surveillance technology following reports that investigators improperly tracked targets without authorization.

In a four-page letter, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said he had not yet found evidence substantiating the claims in the Israeli business daily Calcalist, which said police monitored the leaders of a protest movement against then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mayors and other citizens without court approval. But Mandelblit said many questions remained unanswered, and that he was forming an investigative committee headed by a top deputy.

A "horrific" air strike on a Yemeni prison has left many dead or missing, aid workers said on Friday after a night of deadly bombing that underlined a dramatic escalation in violence.

Retired general Yair Golan spent a significant part of his military career serving in the occupied West Bank, protecting Jewish settlements. Today, he is one of their most vocal critics.

Golan, a former deputy military chief, is now a legislator with the dovish Meretz party, where he has repeatedly spoken out against settler violence against Palestinians.

Yemen lost its connection to the internet nationwide early Friday after Saudi-led airstrikes targeted the contested city of Hodeida, an advocacy group said, plunging the war-torn nation offline.

NetBlocks said the disruption began around 1 a.m. local and affected TeleYemen, the state-owned monopoly that controls internet access in the country. TeleYemen is now run by the Houthi rebels who have held Yemen's capital, Sanaa, since late 2014.

Militants from the Islamic State group launched sophisticated attacks in Syria and Iraq, including an attempt to break into a prison where suspected extremists are being held by U.S.-backed fighters, officials said Friday. Dozens of people were killed.

The separate attacks are believed to be some of the largest since IS lost the final sliver of territory it held nearly three years ago. In recent months, IS sleeper cells have become more active in both countries, claiming attacks that killed scores of Iraqis and Syrians.

A rocket attack on a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed opposition fighters has killed six civilians and wounded over a dozen people, Syrian rescuers and a war monitor said. Both blamed U.S-backed Syrian Kurdish forces for the attack.

The town of Afrin has been under control of Turkey and its allied Syrian opposition fighters since 2018, following a Turkey-backed military operation that pushed Syrian Kurdish fighters and thousands of Kurdish residents from the area.

President Joe Biden says the U.S. is considering restoring its designation of Yemen's Houthis as a terrorist group.

Biden's comment, made at a White House news conference, came after a cross-border strike Monday that killed three people in the United Arab Emirates. The Houthis, a former militia group that now controls much of Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack, which Emiratis say used both missiles and drones, and started fires at a fuel depot and international airport.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki criticized U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday for moving too slowly to reverse all of the Trump administration's adverse policies against the Palestinians and not using Washington's special relationship to pressure Israel to abandon "its rejection of a two-state solution and peace negotiations."

Malki told the U.N. Security Council there were hopes that the end of Donald Trump's administration and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government "would be enough to pave the way for renewed momentum for peace."