Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has decreed a 100-percent pay rise for civil servants and pensioners while fuel subsidies were lifted in a country ravaged by 12 years of war.

The Syrian economy has been battered by the conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions since it began in 2011.

For desperate Syrians, a WhatsApp message saying "I want to go to Europe" can be all they need to start a treacherous journey to Libya and then across the Mediterranean.

Twelve years after conflict broke out when President Bashar al-Assad repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests, Syrians are still trying to escape a war that has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.

Israeli forces have shot and killed two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, in a raid in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, in the latest violence to shake the region.

Some of that violence has been perpetrated by radical Jewish settlers in the West Bank and on Tuesday, an Israeli court released from detention a Jewish settler allegedly involved in the shooting death earlier this month of a 19-year-old Palestinian, placing him under house arrest. Yehiel Indore's release follows the release from detention last week of another settler accused of involvement in the same incident who also was transferred to house arrest.

Clashes between rival militias in Libya's capital killed at least 27 people and left residents trapped in their homes Tuesday, unable to escape the violence, medical authorities said.

The fighting appears to be the most intense to shake Tripoli this year. In addition to the 27 deaths, over 100 people were injured in the fighting, Libya's Emergency Medicine and Support Center, a medical body that is deployed during humanitarian disasters and wars, said early Wednesday.

Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, in a raid in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials said. The Israeli military said troops came under fire and shot back.

Israel has been carrying out near-nightly raids in the West Bank since last year in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks, what has fueled tensions in the region and sent the death toll soaring. The violence comes amid a spike in attacks on Palestinians by radical Jewish settlers, continued settlement expansion and as Israel is led by a government composed of ultranationalist settlement supporters.

The leaders of Egypt and Jordan, and the Palestinian president have slammed Israel, saying it was fueling chaos and violence in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank as bloodshed surges between Israel and Palestinians.

The condemnation came at the end of a three-way summit in the northern Egyptian city of el-Alamein that brought together Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

A blast hit a munitions depot northeast of the Syrian capital Tuesday causing casualties, a war monitor said, two days after a similar explosion hit warehouses belonging to pro-Iran groups.

The morning blast struck a depot containing "missiles and ammunition" in an area northeast of Damascus that is "dominated by Lebanon's Hezbollah", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A photograph of Mourad Allafi hangs in the family farmhouse in western Libya three years after he was found in a mass grave. His father wants his killers dead.

Mohamad Allafi believes the prison terms of six years to life handed down by a military court in February to 30 people convicted of murder are not enough.

The United Arab Emirates has denied a report claiming weapons were found in its aid shipments to refugees of the Sudan war, arguing it "does not take sides" in the conflict.

Fighting since April 15 between the forces of rival Sudanese generals vying for power has killed at least 3,900 people, according to conservative estimates by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

Iraqi merchant Mohamed has never seen such a grim tourist season: years of drought have shrunken the majestic Lake Habbaniyah, keeping away the holidaymakers who once flocked there during summer.

"The last two years, there was some activity, but now there's no more water," said 35-year-old Mohamed, asking to be identified by his first name only.