European Union and Arab leaders will meet in Egypt in late February for their first summit as part of efforts to forge a new European-African alliance and fight migrant smuggling, officials said Thursday.

The United States downgraded its main diplomatic mission to the Palestinians on Thursday, placing it under the authority of the U.S. embassy to Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the consulate general, a separate office which handled dealings with the Palestinians, would be replaced by a new Palestinian Affairs Unit inside the controversial new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas on Thursday pledged to launch an investigation into rocket fire at Israel the previous day, in an apparent bid to calm fears of a new war.

The United States has said it would appoint an ambassador to Qatar, after a 16-month gap during which Doha has been at the centre of a regional diplomatic crisis.

A day after the U.N. envoy for Syria announced his planned departure, the head of the humanitarian taskforce for the war-ravaged country said Thursday he would also resign next month.

The United States will give Saudi Arabia "a few more days" to work on its probe into the suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday.

Flash flooding in Tunisia has killed at least five people while a further two are unaccounted for, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Thursday he was pulling out of a major investment conference in Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura said Wednesday that he will make a final effort before stepping down next month to advance toward a new constitution for Syria — a key step in ending the country's civil war.

De Mistura announced at the end of a Security Council briefing that he is leaving the job in late November for "purely, purely personal reasons" related to his family after four years and four months in one of the toughest U.N. jobs.

Two weeks after he disappeared, The Washington Post on Wednesday published what it said appears to be Jamal Khashoggi's final column, in which the missing Saudi journalist writes of the importance of a free press in the Arab world.