French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged a halt to arms deliveries to Israel, which has been criticized over the conduct of its retaliatory operation in Gaza.

"I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza," Macron told broadcaster France Inter, adding that France was not sending any arms to Israel.

Syrian President Bashar Assad praised Iran for firing nearly 200 missiles at Israel earlier this week saying it was a message to Israel that Tehran and its allies “can deter the enemy.”

Assad spoke during a meeting with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday. In comments carried by state media, Assad said that “resisting occupation, aggression and mass killings is a legitimate right.”

An Israeli official told AFP on Saturday that the military is "preparing a response" to the Iranian missile barrage that targeted Israel earlier this week.

"The IDF (Israeli military) is preparing a response to the unprecedented and unlawful Iranian attack on Israeli civilians and Israel," the military official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

U.S. President Joe Biden has advised Israel against striking Iran's oil facilities, saying he was trying to rally the world to avoid the escalating prospect of all-out war in the Middle East.

The Israeli army on Friday said a drone launched "from the east" killed two soldiers, with a public broadcaster reporting the strike originated from Iraq and hit a base in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The military said the two soldiers died in northern Israel. When asked by AFP for details it said the soldiers were killed in a drone strike launched from the east, without specifying from where.

Strikes by the United States targeted three rebel-run cities in Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida, according to the Houthi-run Al Masirah television network.

Al Masirah reported several U.S. strikes on Sanaa and Hodeida, where AFP correspondents heard loud explosions, as well as additional strikes on Dhamar, south of the capital, but did not specify if the attacks caused any damage or casualties.

An Israeli airstrike on a West Bank cafe that the military said targeted Palestinian militants also killed a family of four, including two young children, relatives told The Associated Press on Friday.

The strike slammed into a three-story building in the Tulkarem refugee camp late Thursday, setting it on fire, destroying a popular cafe and killing at least 18 Palestinians, according to the territory's Health Ministry. It was the deadliest strike in the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war nearly a year ago.

With his major opponents imprisoned or left off the ballot, Tunisian President Kais Saied faces few obstacles to winning reelection on Sunday, five years after riding anti-establishment backlash to a first term.

The North African country's Oct. 6 presidential election is its third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — the first autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings that also overthrew leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered remarks in Arabic in a rare Friday sermon after the Farsi-speaking Islamic republic had launched a missile attack on foe Israel.

During the sermon at a mosque in Tehran, Khamenei hailed Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah and Hamas, which are both fighting Israel and operate in Arabic-speaking Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, respectively.

The Israeli military on Thursday said a strike three months ago killed three senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, where the army has been battling the Palestinian militants for nearly a year.

The military said the strike killed Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, and Sameh al-Siraj, who held the security portfolio for Hamas's political bureau, and Sami Oudeh, a commander.