The Gaza Strip's only functioning power plant was out of action Sunday after running out of fuel, the head of the territory's electricity provider told AFP.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is an "arch-terrorist" and it is time Russia realized he is "literally and metaphorically toxic," British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Sunday.

More than 3,000 Syrians are expected to be evacuated Sunday from four areas as part of a population transfer that was briefly stalled the day before by a deadly blast that killed scores of people, most of them residents of the besieged Shiite towns Foua and Kfarya.

An Egyptian court sentenced former interior minister Habib al-Adly to seven years in prison for corruption Saturday, in one of the last cases against Hosni Mubarak-era officials following his 2011 overthrow.

Adly, who was seen as a brutal enforcer for the ousted strongman Mubarak, can appeal the verdict.

An Iraqi military statement says the Syrian air force has carried out a series of airstrikes against Islamic State group militants inside Syria, with one killing the group's leader in Raqqa, the IS de facto capital

Saturday's statement doesn't say when the airstrikes happened, but described the targets as "the biggest positions for senior terrorists."

US-backed fighters have advanced to the edge of a key jihadist-held town in northern Syria, a monitor said Saturday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance supported by US-led coalition air strikes and special forces advisers, surrounded Tabqa in early April.

Backed by Russian air power and allied militiamen on the ground, Syrian troops have recaptured entire cities from rebels and Islamic State group extremists in the past year, including the key cities of Aleppo, Homs and Palmyra.

Yet for the past three years, President Bashar Assad's forces have been unable to free opposition-held neighborhoods of the capital Damascus, where rebel fighters have built a labyrinth of secret underground tunnels, beyond the reach of airstrikes and connected to opposition-held suburbs farther out.

Thousands of Syrians were bused out of their towns on Friday in the first stage of a widely criticized population transfer that reflects the relentless segregation of Syrian society along political and sectarian lines.

The coordinated evacuations delivered war-weary fighters and residents from two years of siege and hunger, but moved the country closer to a division of its national population by loyalty and sect.

Egyptian Copts will celebrate Easter mass on Saturday, marking one of Christianity's most joyous occasions just days after the deadliest attacks in living memory against the country's religious minority.

The faithful will spend a large part of Easter eve going through arduous security checks outside places of worship, after twin Palm Sunday bombings killed 45 people in two cities north of Cairo. 

A woman was stabbed to death in Jerusalem on Friday and her attacker arrested, a police spokeswoman said.