Saudi Arabia has extended its suspension of commercial passenger flights by at least one week and possibly two amid concerns over a new variant of the coronavirus.

A Saudi court on Monday handed prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul a prison term of five years and eight months for terrorism-related crimes, but a suspended sentence will allow her release within months, her family said.

Jordan on Sunday confirmed two cases of a particularly infectious coronavirus variant in a man and his wife who had arrived from Britain.

Hamas has denounced as "barbaric" Israeli strikes it said damaged a Gaza children's hospital, while Israel's army said it was responding to rocket fire from the enclave.

Controversial Tunisian media mogul and former presidential candidate Nabil Karoui has been rearrested in connection with an affair involving money laundering and tax evasion, a judicial spokesman said.

The next round of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government will be held in Qatar from next month, a top official said Sunday, despite President Ashraf Ghani's recent calls for them to be moved home.

Turkey's defense minister said that any attack by eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar on its personnel in the North African country would be met with force. 

Israel was set Sunday to begin its third coronavirus lockdown, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced optimism that a "world record" vaccination drive will restore a degree of normality within weeks.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar travelled to Libya on Saturday flanked by top military officers to inspect Turkish units in the war-torn country, the official Anadolu news agency reported.

Israel has targeted a number of sites in Gaza after Palestinian militants fired rockets into the south of the country, the army said Saturday.