France and Britain on Friday called for an end to the Russian and Syrian bombing campaign over Aleppo as the U.N. Security Council began an emergency meeting on the crisis in Syria.

"The top priority is to stop the bloodbath in Aleppo," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters as he headed into the council chamber for the closed-door talks.

A 72-hour truce for conflict-riddled Yemen is expected to be announced soon, the U.N. envoy to the Arabian Peninsula country said Friday after talks with rebel representatives.

Russian warship "Mirage" on Friday passed through Istanbul's Bosphorus strait, heading to the Mediterranean to back up Russia's bombing campaign in Syria, AFP journalists reported.

The German government on Friday said it would not rule out backing possible sanctions against Russia over its aerial bombardment of Aleppo, as the United States mulled new embargo against the Syrian regime.

Cross-border rebel shelling from Yemen killed one person and wounded a mother and child in southern Saudi Arabia on Friday, the kingdom's civil defense said.

The German military on Friday said it had grounded nearly half its fleet of Tornado reconnaissance jets, used in the fight against the Islamic State group, because of a technical defect.

Syrian government troops advanced gradually against rebels inside ravaged second city Aleppo on Friday, as the UN Security Council prepared to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the violence.

The assault on rebel-held districts of the divided city has raised international concern, with UN envoy Staffan de Mistura warning east Aleppo could be "totally destroyed" by year's end.

Israel has deported all but one of a group of women activists who tried to break its decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip by boat, the interior ministry said Friday.

A ministry spokeswoman said the last activist would leave the country later the same day.

Moroccans voted Friday to elect a new parliament, five years after an Islamist-led government took office following Arab Spring-inspired protests that toppled regimes across the region.

The vote pitted the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) against the liberal opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), which says it wants to roll back the "Islamization" of Moroccan society.

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Syria on Friday after the U.N. envoy warned that east Aleppo may be totally destroyed in the next few months by the Russian and Syrian air campaign.