The Israeli navy intercepted a Swedish-flagged activist boat bent on breaching its more than decade-long blockade of Gaza, the second in less than a week, the military said on Saturday.

"The ship was monitored and was intercepted in accordance with international law," the military said in a statement, before the vessel, named Freedom for Gaza and carrying 12 people, was taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The leadership of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is to convene Friday for a rare meeting, officials said, amid speculation of a long-term truce between the Gaza Strip's rulers and Israel.

U.S. officials say the Trump administration is staffing up a Middle East policy team at the White House in anticipation of unveiling its long awaited but largely mysterious Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

The National Security Council last week began approaching other agencies seeking volunteers to join the team, which will work for President Donald Trump's Mideast peace pointmen Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, according to the officials. The team, which is being set up to organize the peace plan's public presentation and any negotiations that may ensue, will comprise three units: one concentrating on its political and security details, one on its significant economic focus and one on strategic communications, the officials said.

After recapturing most of Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is threatening to march on opposition forces in Idlib, the densely populated northwest province that shares a border with rebel ally Turkey.

The United Nations will invite warring sides in Yemen for talks on September 6 in Geneva to discuss a framework for peace negotiations, the envoy announced on Thursday.

Syrian air defences on Thursday engaged an "enemy attack" west of Damascus, state media reported.

An Israeli air strike has killed seven militants believed to be linked to the Islamic State group and seeking to infiltrate the country from the Syrian Golan Heights, the army said Thursday.

Gains by President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the Syrian civil war present advantages for Israel even though the two countries remain technically at war, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday.

"In Syria, as far as we are concerned, the situation is returning to the previous one before the civil war, meaning there is a clear address, there is responsibility and there is a central government," Lieberman told journalists while visiting Israeli air defences.

Seoul said Thursday it had deployed a warship to Libya in an apparent show of force to secure the release of a South Korean national kidnapped along with three Filipinos in the North African country.

Amnesty International on Thursday accused Turkish forces of allowing Syrian armed groups to commit major rights abuses in the northern region of Afrin, urging Ankara to end the violations immediately.