U.S. and Israeli commanders overseeing a major joint air defense exercise spoke Thursday of preparing for evolving threats in the Middle East during the month-long drill.

The Juniper Cobra exercise, held every two years since 2001, comes as Israel is increasingly concerned by what it says is a growing Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria and Lebanon.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a private meeting Thursday with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, where he made a "strong commitment" to interfaith dialogue, the archbishop's office said.

An air raid believed to have been carried out by the Saudi-led coalition hit a home in Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa, killing six members of the same family, witnesses and rebels said Thursday.

Hundreds of tents are to be erected near the Gaza-Israel border for a six-week show of support for Palestinian refugees, officials said Thursday, in what may stir fresh tensions with Israeli forces.

Palestinian families are to set up hundreds of tents -- possibly thousands - for the protests running from March 30 to May 15, organizers said.

Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels on Thursday took control of the key northern town of Jandairis from Kurdish militia, a monitor said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns Friday from the United States to face what may be the most crucial stretch of his long political career, with corruption probes encircling him and talk of elections building.

With no fewer than four investigations looking into his affairs and a possible indictment on the horizon, Netanyahu has been seeking to remind Israelis of what supporters view as his clout and leadership.

Israeli lawmakers have passed a controversial bill allowing police to hold the corpses of alleged Palestinian assailants indefinitely, parliament said on Thursday. 

Germany has remanded in custody a 17-year-old Iraqi suspected of having planned an explosives attack for the Islamic State jihadist group in Germany or Britain, prosecutors said Thursday.

More than 900 civilians have been killed in Eastern Ghouta since Syrian government forces launched a blistering assault on the rebel enclave on February 18, a monitor said on Thursday.

Dozens of people were treated for breathing difficulties after air strikes slammed into Syria's Eastern Ghouta late Wednesday, a monitor said, with medics reporting symptoms consistent with a toxic attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 60 people in the besieged rebel enclave were left struggling to breathe after air strikes and barrel bombs hit the towns of Saqba and Hammuriyeh.