Turkish forces have killed the leader of the Islamic State group during an operation in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Sunday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan told TRT Turk television in an interview that the IS leader, code-named Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, was killed in a strike conducted on Saturday.

Tunisian President Kais Saied has preached freedom of thought at a book fair, shortly before authorities confiscated a book comparing him to Frankenstein, its author and publisher said.

Three civilians were wounded Saturday in Israeli air strikes near the Syrian city of Homs, Syrian state media reported, with a war monitor saying a Hezbollah munitions depot was hit.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Damascus "in the near future," on the first such trip to Syria since the country's civil war began, Iran's foreign minister said.

Private armed guards aboard a famous yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton opened fire on Yemeni Coast Guard members Friday after mistaking them for pirates, sparking a gunfight in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said.

The incident off Yemen shows the danger faced by both shippers and security forces in the waters off the Arab world's poorest country, even as it remains crucial for global commerce.

Israeli security forces said they shot and killed a suspected Palestinian assailant in the West Bank on Thursday, stirring tensions in the occupied territory at a time of unusually high violence.

The Israeli military said it received reports that a Palestinian had tried to carry out a car-ramming attack near the large West Bank settlement of Ariel. Israeli soldiers opened fire at the suspected assailant after they realized he was wielding a knife, the military added. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man killed as 39-year-old Ahmed Taha from the northern Palestinian village of Salfit. No other casualties were reported.

Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis who support a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judiciary have flocked to Jerusalem to rally for the proposal, which has prompted some of the biggest protests in Israel's history.

After 16 weeks of protests against the overhaul that brought parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to a standstill, Thursday marked a rare mobilization of massive public support for the divisive plan.

After paying nearly $100,000 in ransoms to free 10 family members, Khaled Taalou, a member of Iraq's Yazidi minority, is still working to free other missing relatives kidnapped by Islamic State group fighters.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Turkish border guards of shooting, torturing and using excessive force against Syrians seeking to flee their war-racked country into neighboring Turkey.

It urged Ankara to investigate border guards, hold those responsible for "grave human rights violations, including unlawful killings" to account, and end "longstanding impunity for these abuses".

A young man wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with "Dior," women clutching babies wrapped in blankets, children bundled in winter coats. All gingerly stepped from rickety boats into the sturdy craft of the Tunisian Maritime National Guard — and away from their dreams of life in Europe.

Cold, wet and heartbroken, they are among hundreds caught daily in overnight sweeps for migrant boats on the Mediterranean Sea.