The Palestinian hamlet of al-Qabun in the central occupied West Bank was silent this week — the grazing fields for sheep deserted, the empty schoolhouse locked, the makeshift homes left as steel carcasses.

The last families living there packed up two weeks ago, driven from their homes of nearly three decades by what they said was a year of intensified attacks and harassment by armed Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts on neighboring hilltops.

An avalanche of rocks tumbled down a hillside in Israel near the Dead Sea on Thursday, Israeli medics said, injuring at least seven people, including children.

Israel's rescue service said the victims ranged from 4 to 40 years old, including a 5-year-old boy in critical condition. A 4-year-old girl was in moderate condition and others were less seriously injured after layers of mud and rocks slammed into the hiking trail.

Three members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed Thursday in a Turkish drone strike in Iraq's Kurdistan region, authorities said, as Ankara's top diplomat visited the northern region.

"A Turkish army drone struck a PKK vehicle, killing an official and two fighters" of the group -- considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey and Western countries -- in the Sidakan district, the Kurdish counter-terrorism services said.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are among six nations invited Thursday to join the BRICS bloc of developing economies.

United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia are also set to join the bloc from 2024.

Cyprus said Wednesday it dismantled a criminal human smuggling ring responsible for bringing boatloads of Syrian migrants from Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. The eastern Mediterranean island nation has seen almost daily migrant boat arrivals in recent days.

Cypriot police said three months of investigative work resulted in the arrest of five suspects following a raid by a combined force of 40 officers on several homes in the island's southeast.

Algeria's top diplomat began a tour of West African countries Wednesday in a bid to find a solution following the coup in neighbouring Niger, where Algiers opposes any military intervention.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf was "mandated by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune" to go on a diplomatic tour to Nigeria, Benin and Ghana, the Algerian foreign ministry said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Cypriot police on Wednesday arrested five Syrians in an operation seeking to crack down on illegal trafficking networks on the island, authorities said.

European Union member Cyprus argues it is a "frontline country" on the Mediterranean migrant route. Last year, according to EU data, it had the highest number of first-time asylum applications relative to population in the 27-member bloc.

Angry protesters raided the local offices of the ruling Baath party in a southern Syrian province Wednesday, as protests intensified against the country's government during a severe economic and financial crisis battering the war-torn country.

Opposition activists said protesters also partially blocked a highway that links the Druze-majority Sweida province to the capital Damascus in anti-government rallies that broke out Tuesday night.

Shelling hit the hometown of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the coastal province of Latakia on Wednesday, wounding a civilian, state media said, the second such attack in two months.

"Five shells were fired by terrorist groups deployed in the northern countryside on agricultural lands in the Qardaha area, wounding a citizen," the official news agency SANA said, quoting a police source.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed over 200 Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis so far this year – already surpassing last year's annual figures and the highest number since 2005, the U.N. Mideast envoy said Monday.

Tor Wennesland told the U.N. Security Council that the upswing in violence is being fueled by growing despair about the future, with the Palestinians still seeking an independent state.