U.N. chief Antonio Guterres has proposed international monitors to support Libya's fragile ceasefire amid hopes that foreign fighters will soon leave and the country can turn the page on a decade of war.

Egypt's public prosecutor Wednesday cleared five policemen of responsibility in the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni and said he will not pursue the case because the perpetrator is unknown.

At least 30 Syrian soldiers were killed Wednesday in an attack by the jihadist Islamic State group on their bus in the east of the war-torn country, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack in Deir Ezzor province targeted a bus carrying regime soldiers going home on leave.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Wednesday that he is leaving the Blue and White party, in the latest high profile defection from the bloc led by Defense Minister Benny Gantz. 

At least 26 people were killed Wednesday as explosions rocked Yemen's Aden airport moments after a new unity government flew in, in what some officials charged was a "cowardly" attack by Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Although all government ministers were reported to be unharmed, more than 50 people were wounded, medical and government sources told AFP in the southern city, with the casualty toll feared likely to rise.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said Wednesday that Qatar's ruler is invited to the bloc's summit meeting next week amid efforts to heal rifts between Doha and a Saudi-led alliance.

Many Syrians forced from their homes by their country's brutal, decade-old war are now shocked to discover that their family farms have been taken over by regime loyalists and cronies.

Rights groups on Tuesday demanded that Palestinian authorities free a woman disc jockey arrested after a dance event at a Muslim religious site near the West Bank city of Jericho.

An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced a former student to three years in prison for sexually harassing two young women, in a case that sparked outrage on social media under the #MeToo hashtag.

The trial of Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul is "politically motivated", her brother told AFP, after the campaigner was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison for terrorism-related crimes.