Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the latest attack Wednesday on a merchant ship in the Red Sea, as the vessel's operator sharply raised prices between Asia and Europe.

The Iran-backed rebels, who have launched more than 20 attacks on merchant ships in recent weeks, said they attacked the Malta-flagged freighter believing it was headed for occupied Palestinian territory. The ship was not hit.

South Africa has launched a case at the United Nations' top court alleging that Israel's military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

The filing and Israel's decision to defend itself at the International Court of Justice set up a high-stakes showdown before a panel of judges in the Great Hall of Justice.

Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group's military wing, had been in Israel's sights for years before he was killed in a drone strike in a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before Hamas carried out its deadly surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the ongoing brutal war in Gaza.

Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Tuesday condemned the assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in a Beirut suburb, in a strike attributed to Israel.

Shtayyeh called the killing a "crime perpetrated by known criminals" and warned about the "risks and consequences that could follow," according to a statement issued by his office.

Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair has strongly denied an Israeli media report linking him to talks last week about the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza in other countries.

Channel 12 claimed on Sunday that Blair, who left office in 2007 and served as a Middle East envoy charged with building up Palestinian institutions, was in Israel last week.

Islamic State group jihadists killed nine Syrian government troops and militiamen in an attack on military posts in the eastern desert, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday.

"IS cells carried out a surprise attack, targeting positions of the regime army and National Defence Forces in the western countryside of Deir-Ezzor, killing nine of them and wounding more than 20," the Britain-based war monitor said.

An explosive drone targeting the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq was shot down at Arbil airport on Tuesday, authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan said.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-linked armed groups that oppose U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war.

Turkey on Tuesday detained 33 people suspected of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service, Turkish media reported, without specifying the nationalities of those detained.

The suspects were rounded up in raids across eight provinces around Istanbul, the private DHA and state-run Anadolu news agencies reported, adding that their mission included conducting abductions and carrying out reconnaissance work.

Israel launched pre-dawn air strikes near the Syrian capital on Tuesday, state media said citing a military source, at a time of heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel had targeted a military position that also housed members of Lebanon's Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, near the town of Kanaker.

Shelling and missile strikes rocked the length of the Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday, after Israel's army warned its war against the territory's Hamas rulers will last through 2024.

Nearly three months of conflict have claimed almost 22,000 lives in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and devastated much of the besieged territory.