Gaza militants fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Thursday, hours after a cease-fire was declared to end two days of intense fighting between Israel and the Islamic Jihad group, the heaviest escalation in months that killed at least 34 Palestinians, including three women and eight children, and paralyzed parts of Israel.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the new wave of rockets and it wasn’t clear how this would affect the fate of the cease-fire.

The United States will maintain around 600 troops in Syria, Pentagon chief Mark Esper said Wednesday, despite Donald Trump's desire to end US involvement in what the president calls "endless wars".

A Gaza Strip ceasefire came into effect early Thursday, an Egyptian source and a senior Islamic Jihad official told AFP, following a spike in violence and bloodshed in the Palestinian enclave.

Waves of violent protests have engulfed Baghdad and Iraq’s southern provinces, with demonstrators chanting for the downfall of a political establishment that they say doesn’t prioritize them.

Fueling the unrest is anger over an economy flush with oil money that has failed to bring jobs or improvements to the lives of young people, who are the majority of those taking to the streets. They say they have had enough of blatant government corruption and subpar basic services.

The leader of Tunisia's Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, Rached Ghannouchi, was elected parliament speaker on Wednesday, a month after it came top in legislative polls. 

Iraqi officials must ramp up their response to mass demonstrations demanding an overhaul of the political system, the U.N. representative in Baghdad told AFP in an exclusive interview Wednesday.

Anti-government rallies swelled in Iraq's capital and south Wednesday as Baghdad faced new pressure from both the street and the United Nations to respond seriously to weeks of demonstrations. 

Protests demanding a new leadership have rocked the capital and Shiite-majority south for weeks, the crowds undeterred by government pledges of reform and the deaths of more than 300 people.

Barely four months into his tenure, Defense Secretary Mark Esper is making his second trek across the Pacific. And yet it is the Middle East - most recently a near-war with Iran and an actual war in Syria - that in Washington commands more attention and demands more American troops.

Esper's Asia visits illustrate the central feature of a revamped U.S. defense strategy: Focus first on China as a threat to U.S. global predominance, rather than remain bogged down in a generation-long fight against extremist groups.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have said they will participate in this month's Arabian Gulf Cup football tournament in Qatar, signalling a thaw in their bitter two-year feud.

Two Palestinians were killed in Israeli air and missile strikes on Gaza early Wednesday, the territory's health ministry said, taking the death toll from a two-day flare-up to 12.