Tens of thousands of civilians are fleeing bombardment in Syria's Idlib region, the UN said, as fighting flares in the jihadist bastion fuelling an already dire humanitarian situation.

The Idlib region, which is home to some three million people including many displaced by Syria's civil war, is controlled by the country's former Al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The Damascus regime has repeatedly vowed to take back control of it.

Russia and China used their veto Friday to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have extended for a year cross-border humanitarian aid to four million Syrians.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled from the southern Idlib region in northwestern Syria to the north of the province amid heavy bombardment this week, the U.N. humanitarian agency said Friday.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called Friday for early elections to end the months of political paralysis that have gripped the protest-hit country.

Libya's U.N.-recognized unity government on Friday urged five "friendly countries" to implement military deals as it seeks to repel the forces of an eastern-based strongman fighting to seize the capital.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor said Friday she wanted t open a full investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, sparking a furious reaction from Israel.

Clashes between Syrian regime forces and armed groups in the country's last major opposition bastion have killed more than 60 on both sides in the past 24 hours despite UN calls for de-escalation, a war monitoring group said Friday.

A car bomb killed five people including three children in the Turkish-controlled region of northern Syria on Thursday, Turkey's defense ministry said.

Human Rights Watch called on Egyptian authorities Thursday to provide "critically needed medical care" to an imprisoned Islamist activist who is the daughter of a Muslim Brotherhood leader.

Aisha al-Shater, 39, was arrested in November 2018 in a crackdown that swept up other political and rights activists as well as lawyers, according to HRW.

Former prime minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune was sworn in as the new president of protest-hit Algeria on Thursday, a week after winning a widely boycotted election.