Syria's defense ministry said seven soldiers were killed on Wednesday when the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces targeted an arms depot in the country's northeast, despite a fresh ceasefire announced a day earlier.

"Army forces found a factory for producing explosive devices and drone munitions" in Hasakeh province near a border crossing with Iraq, the ministry said, adding that as government forces began securing the site, the SDF "targeted it with a suicide drone, leading to an explosion and the death of seven soldiers", with 20 others wounded.

Gaza's civil defense agency said an Israeli strike in the center of the territory on Wednesday killed three journalists, including a freelancer who previously worked for AFP, despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

In a statement, the civil defense said "the bodies of the three journalists killed in an Israeli air strike in the Al-Zahra area southwest of Gaza City were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah".

U.S. President Donald Trump's government has asked countries to pay up to $1 billion for a permanent spot on his "Board of Peace" aimed at resolving conflicts, according to its charter seen by AFP.

The board was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but the charter does not appear to limit its role to the Palestinian territory.

Iran's foreign minister issued the most direct threat yet Wednesday against the United States after Tehran's bloody crackdown on protesters, warning the Islamic Republic will be "firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack."

The comments by Abbas Araghchi, who saw his invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos rescinded over the killings, comes as an American aircraft carrier group moves westward toward the Middle East from Asia. American fighter jets and other equipment appears to be moving in the Mideast after a major U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean saw troops seize Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro.

Russia's interior minister has met with top leaders of ally Cuba in Havana, a show of solidarity after U.S. President Donald Trump warned that the island's longtime communist government "is ready to fall."

Trump this month told Havana to "make a deal," the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by U.S. forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.

Sudan's army has received and is considering a new proposal from the United States and Saudi Arabia for a truce with its rival paramilitary, a government source told AFP on Wednesday.

The Security and Defense Council -- a high-level body that includes officials from the army and the allied government -- "is holding a meeting today to discuss the U.S.-Saudi initiative for a humanitarian truce and a ceasefire", the source said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

An Iranian Kurdish opposition party headquartered in Iraq accused Iran on Wednesday of conducting a rocket and drone attack on its premises, killing one of its members and wounding two others.

"At dawn today, the occupying Iranian state... targeted one of the Kurdistan National Army's headquarters" using missiles and drones, said the Kurdistan Freedom Party, referring to an armed group that operates under its authority.

Syria's defense ministry announced a four-day ceasefire with Kurdish forces on Tuesday, after an understanding was reached between the two sides on the future of the Kurdish-majority Hasakeh region.

A senior official in Syria's Kurdish administration said Tuesday that the Kurds were in contact with Israel and were open to support from "any source", amid tensions with Damascus despite a recent deal.

"There are certain figures from the side of the Israeli state engaged in communications with our side... and if this conversation leads to support, we would be open to support... from any source," Elham Ahmad told reporters in an online event, according to the English translation of her remarks in Kurdish.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday vowed Europe's response to U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats on Greenland and tariffs will be "unflinching".

"Plunging us into a downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape. So our response will be unflinching, united and proportional," von der Leyen said in a keynote speech at a gathering of the global elites in Davos.