Visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi hailed Syria's Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday for overcoming sanctions and achieving "victory" in the country's 12-year-long civil war, in which Tehran has been a major ally.

The Syria conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry. While the front lines have mostly quietened in recent years, large parts of the country's north remain outside government control.

Lebanese officials are cracking down on Syrian refugees against the backdrop of a worsening economic crisis and political stalemate, an escalation that has caused a panic among Syrians in the country.

In recent weeks, the army has raided refugee camps and set up checkpoints to review the documentation of non-Lebanese citizens, arresting and in many cases deporting Syrians found not to have legal residency, according to refugees and humanitarian organizations.

Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad announced a truce around Gaza Wednesday, after militants traded fire with Israel following the death in Israeli custody of a hunger striker from its ranks.

Mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations intervened to broker a return to calm from 4 am (0100 GMT), sources in Islamic Jihad and fellow militant group Hamas told AFP.

The Israeli military traded fire with Gaza militants Tuesday in a flare-up of violence following the death in Israeli custody of a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike.

The army said it hit Gaza with "tank fire" in response to rockets from the Palestinian enclave, sparking a renewed volley from Gaza that was witnessed by AFP journalists.

The 2023 Canada-United Kingdom Media Freedom Award was presented Tuesday to independent Egyptian online newspaper Mada Masr for its “extraordinary commitment to high-quality independent journalism,” the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said.

“The newspaper continued to report, amidst a takedown of their website and legal threats to its reporters. This award signals Canada and the UK’s enduring commitment to supporting free and independent journalism,” the FCDO said in a statement.

From her modest home in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Amina al-Dabai remembers the very different world in which she grew up more than seven decades ago.

Born in 1934, Dabai was still only a child when Israel was created on May 14, 1948.

The U.S. House speaker has addressed Israel's parliament, a rare honor awarded to the highest-ranking Republican in U.S. politics at a time of fraught relations between Israel's government and Democratic President Joe Biden.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu portrayed the speech as a nod to bipartisan U.S. support for Israel as it marks 75 years since its creation. Critics say the platform given to McCarthy — he's only the second House speaker to address the Knesset, after Newt Gingrich in 1998 — is a pointed jab at Biden.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Amman to discuss Syria's long-running conflict have agreed the return of Syrian refugees was a "top priority", according to a communique released after the talks.

The talks in Jordan's capital brought together foreign ministers from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt, in the latest regional engagement with the long isolated government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Jordan's top diplomat has said that regional talks with Syria are a step in the right direction to end a decade of the war-torn country's political isolation and bring Damascus back into the Arab fold.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi's remarks came as Jordan hosted a meeting of envoys from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Before the meeting kicked off, Safadi met one-on-one with his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad.

Israeli airstrikes targeted the international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early Tuesday, killing one Syrian soldier and putting the airport out of commission, state media said.

Syria's state news agency SANA, citing a military official, said two civilians and five other Syrian soldiers were wounded, and that Israel had launched airstrikes on other unnamed targets around Aleppo.