Thousands attended angry protests in Baghdad and southern Iraq Saturday, grieving but defiant after 20 of them were killed in an attack the previous day that demonstrators described as "slaughter".

Israeli aircraft carried out attacks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip early Sunday, Palestinian security officials said, hours after militants in the enclave launched three rockets at Israel.

U.S. President Donald Trump aimed to make inroads Saturday in the politically important Jewish-American vote with a Florida speech where he declared himself the best friend Israel has ever had.

A drone dropped a bomb on the home of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr in the shrine city of Najaf early Saturday but he was not in the country, sources within his party told AFP.

Iraqi protesters defiantly turned out on Saturday across the country's south and in the capital, where a dozen people were killed in an overnight attack by unidentified gunmen.

Qatar's foreign minister has spoken of "some progress" in talks with Saudi Arabia on ending a bitter two-year-old rift between Doha and the kingdom and its allies.  

Israel's defense ministry signed a deal with its Czech counterpart on Thursday to sell it radar systems used in Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.

Israel detained four Palestinian journalists in Jerusalem Friday for several hours over "illegal activity" connected with the Palestinian Authority, a police spokesman said. 

Algeria braced for fresh demonstrations Friday, the last in a series of weekly marches before a presidential election opposed by a protest movement that fears it will cement in power politicians close to the old guard.

Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani demanded Friday that the choice of a new premier for the protest-hit country be made free of "foreign interference."