After eight months of relative calm, Syria's northwestern province of Idlib is once again a theater for bloody military operations: heavy bombardment, airstrikes and waves of civilian displacement as Syrian government troops, backed by Russia, push their way into the rebel-held enclave in a widening offensive.

The violence of the past week threatens to completely unravel a crumbling cease-fire agreement reached between Turkey and Russia at the Black Sea resort of Sochi in September last year, which averted a potentially devastating assault by the Syrian government to retake the province.

The UN Security Council will meet behind closed doors to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Libya as a month-long offensive on the capital grinds on, diplomats said on Thursday.

Syrian government forces recaptured a northwestern town on Thursday from around which jihadists and allied rebels have launched rockets on their Russian ally's key airbase, a monitor said.

Air attacks and shelling of schools and hospitals in northwest Syria amount to "an unacceptable violation of international law," the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

As Iraq tries thousands of locals and foreigners accused of joining the Islamic State group, experts warn its jails could once again become "academies" for jihadists.

The U.N. Security Council will meet Friday to discuss the escalation of fighting in Syria's northwestern region of Idlib, where hospitals and schools have been hit by strikes, diplomats said.

An Arab human-rights activist who worked with slain editorialist Jamal Khashoggi said Wednesday he was briefly placed under police protection in Norway owing to threats on his life.

A Tel Aviv court has authorised an Israeli teenager held in jail over a Palestinian woman's death to be transferred to house arrest pending his trial, the justice ministry said Wednesday.

The U.N. warned Wednesday that its agencies providing food assistance to Gaza must raise tens of millions of dollars within weeks to avoid significant aid cuts.

For nine days, Syrian matriarch Fatima al-Masri has slept under olive trees near the Turkish border, after fleeing air strikes by the regime and its allies on her hometown.