A British security guard who was killed in a suspected Iranian drone strike on an Israel-linked tanker was a former soldier in the British army, his employers said on Thursday.

Maritime security firm Ambrey said Adrian Underwood was on board the M/T Mercer Street when it came under attack in the Indian Ocean off Oman last Thursday.

The international chemical weapons watchdog has demanded more information from Syria about the reported recent destruction of two chlorine cylinders that had been linked to a 2018 deadly attack on the Syrian town of Douma -- a demand echoed Wednesday by several members of the U.N. Security Council.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria's government sent a note to its secretariat July 9 reporting that the two cylinders were destroyed by a June 8 airstrike on a Syrian military facility which housed a former chemical weapons production facility.

The hijackers who captured a vessel off the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman left the ship Wednesday, the British navy reported, as radio traffic appeared to reveal a crew member onboard saying Iranian gunmen had stormed the asphalt tanker.

The incident — described by the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations the night before as a "potential hijack" — revived fears of an escalation in Mideast waters and ended with as much mystery as it began.

A week after the death of his eldest son, Moayed al-Alami sat on the sofa on his ground floor patio, protectively hugging and kissing two of his remaining children.

Tunisia's powerful UGTT trade union body has urged President Kais Saied to form a new government, nearly two weeks after he assumed executive power and sacked the prime minister.

Saied also suspended parliament for 30 days on July 25, and has since dismissed four ministers and other top officials.

Shelling by Turkish forces and their rebel proxies killed three children and a male relative in northern Syria Wednesday, a war monitor said, in an attack condemned by Kurdish authorities.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that rockets were fired on a village controlled by Kurdish forces on the outskirts of the volatile Ain Issa district, near the border with Turkey.

The suspected hijacking of a ship in the Gulf of Oman has ended and the vessel is safe, a UK maritime security agency said on Wednesday, days after a deadly attack on a tanker in the region.

The NATO alliance Tuesday condemned a deadly attack on an Israeli-operated tanker last week, and urged Iran to respect international shipping rules.

Separately, the European Union also condemned the "unacceptable" attack and "any action that would be detrimental to peace and stability in this area".   

Israel's Supreme Court has floated compromises that would block the evictions of dozens of Palestinians in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where attempts by Jewish settlers to expel them from their homes helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza militants in May.

The cases examined Monday involved four Palestinian families, numbering a total of about 70 people.

Tunisia -- which has seen the world's worst Covid-19 death toll -- may be over the peak of the latest wave but the government must still speed up inoculations, the WHO said.