Thousands of Syrians converged at the landmark Umayyad Mosque in Damascus ahead of Friday prayers where the leader of the Islamist rebels who seized power last week is expected, AFP correspondents reported.

Men, women and children flocked to the mosque, an unusual sight in Damascus, with some raising the Syrian independence flag, used by the opposition since the 2011 uprising. Some chanted: "one, one, one, the Syrian people is one," the correspondents said.

Jordan will host a Syria crisis summit over the weekend with participation of foreign ministers from numerous Western and Arab nations, Amman’s foreign ministry announced Thursday.

The Saturday summit "to discuss developments in Syria" will include top diplomats from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, who will also convene with their Turkish and U.S. counterparts, the EU’s foreign policy chief and the U.N. envoy for Syria, the statement said.

The United Nations humanitarian agency said Thursday that more than a million people, mostly women and children, had been newly displaced in Syria since rebels launched an offensive ousting President Bashar al-Assad.

"As of 12 December, 1.1 million people have been newly displaced across the country since the start of the escalation of hostilities on 27 November. The majority are women and children," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

The leader of the Islamist rebels that seized power in Syria last week called on people to take to the streets to celebrate "the victory of the revolution" on Friday.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the military to "prepare to remain" throughout the winter in the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights.

An Israeli airstrike flattened a multistory building in central Gaza, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens more, according to Palestinian medical officials, after strikes Thursday across the Gaza Strip killed at least 28 others.

The latest deadly strike hit the urban Nuseirat refugee camp just hours after U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters in Jerusalem that the recent ceasefire in Lebanon has helped clear the way for a potential deal to end the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

Turkey has appointed a temporary charge d’affaires to reopen its embassy in Syria, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported.

The Turkish Embassy in Damascus had suspended operations in 2012 due to the escalating security problems during the Syrian civil war and embassy staff and their families were recalled to Turkey.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is wrapping up a visit to Turkey with talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Friday as he presses ahead with efforts to unify Middle East nations in support of a peaceful political transition in Syria.

On the second stop of his latest Mideast trip — his 12th since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year but first since the weekend ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad — Blinken saw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late Thursday to try to bring Turkey into a consensus to prevent Syria from collapsing into wider turmoil.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said that “the Middle East is an easier problem to handle than what's happening with Russia and Ukraine.”

Visiting U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared prepared to negotiate a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.