For three days last month, Nasser joined hundreds of others jammed into emergency rooms in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, searching for a hospital bed for his mother, who was struggling to breathe. By the time one became available, his mother was dead.

But her death certainly won't figure in the country's coronavirus numbers. Officially, there have been only four virus cases and one death in Yemen's north, according to the Houthi rebel authorities who control the capital and surrounding provinces.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria has voiced his growing concern at increased hostilities in the south of the country and warned of the alarming shortages faced by civilians.

Turkish soldier was killed by shellfire in northern Iraq on Thursday, Ankara said, blaming the attack on fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"One of our heroic soldiers was seriously injured in a mortar attack by PKK terrorists on one of our bases. He was taken to hospital where he could not be saved," the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Three years after Syria's government retook control of the flashpoint southern province of Daraa, regime forces have clashed with rebels again, trapping thousands of civilians in the crossfire.

Nearly half of the population of the rebel-held Daraa al-Balad district have fled heavy shelling and ground battles, but the United Nations warns that remaining civilians are cut off with dwindling supplies.

Israel is to approve 2,000 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, defense sources said Thursday, despite opposition from dovish members of the governing coalition.

The Palestinians swiftly condemned the latest settlement expansion plans, the first of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's administration.

Deadly rocket and mortar fire on Israeli cities by Palestinian militant groups during a May conflict in and around Gaza constituted war crimes, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

The New York-based rights group analysed attacks from Gaza that resulted in the deaths of 12 Israeli civilians and injuries to dozens more.

Wildfires fanned by blistering temperatures and tinder-dry conditions have killed at least 42 people in Algeria, authorities said on Tuesday, adding that the fires had criminal origins.

Israel's top diplomat landed in Morocco on Wednesday for the first visit by a senior official from the Jewish state since the two sides agreed to normalize ties last year.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree on Tuesday approving a new cabinet headed by Hussein Arnous, following a May election that secured Assad's grip on power in the war-torn country.

The new 29-minister government, announced less than two weeks since Assad tasked Arnous with forming it, is little changed from its predecessor.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein met his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran Tuesday, Iranian media reported, as Baghdad prepares to host a regional summit later this month.

The two men discussed "bilateral ties and latest regional and international developments," the ISNA news agency said.