The fight for control of Libya's capital is depriving tens of thousands of pupils of their education, with high school students displaced by the violence fretting about their future.

A former Israeli soldier wanted by Colombia for sex trafficking, including of minors, has been arrested in Portugal, Spanish police, which took part in the operation, said Thursday.

The United States is considering deploying more troops to the Middle East as it looks for ways to enhance the protection of its forces in the turbulent region, acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Thursday.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday shot down a bomb-laden drone deployed by rebels in neighbouring Yemen to attack an airport in the kingdom, the Riyadh-led coalition fighting on the side of Yemen's government said.

"An explosive-laden drone sent by the terrorist Huthi militia to target Najran airport" was intercepted and destroyed by the Saudi air force, coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki was quoted by state media as saying.

Syrian government aircraft bombed several towns in northwestern Syria on Thursday killing five civilians as troops and militia battled jihadists on the ground, a monitor said.

The head of the United Nations organisation for Palestinian refugees on Thursday rejected a US call to dismantle the agency, saying it cannot be blamed for stalled peace efforts.

UN envoy Ghassan Salame has bitterly denounced the conflict in Libya saying it is "committing suicide" and plundering its oil wealth to pay for the war.

The Palestinian leadership confirmed Wednesday they would not attend a U.S.-led peace conference in Bahrain next month.

Israel reduced the offshore fishing limits it imposes for vessels operating out of Gaza from Thursday after Palestinians floated balloons fitted with incendiaries over the border, officials said.

An Italian held hostage since being kidnapped in 2016 on the Turkey-Syria border has been released, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Wednesday.