Saudi Arabia said Monday it deposited $5 billion into the Turkish central bank, likely helping Ankara firm up its long-weakening currency, the lira, after last month's massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and northern Syria.

The deposit provides a capstone for just how far relations have improved between the kingdom and Turkey after years of tensions the nations, particularly after the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkey also backed Qatar in a yearslong boycott by the kingdom, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel's finance minister has said that he had chosen his words poorly when he called for a Palestinian town to be "wiped out" after two Israeli settlers were killed there.

The two young settlers were shot dead on February 26 in their car in Huwara, a northern town in the West Bank, sparking attacks by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian town.

The World Bank has said that Syria sustained an estimated $5.1 billion in damages in last month's massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and northern parts of the war-torn country.

The quake killed at least 50,000 people, including about 6,000 in Syria, according to the United Nations. Tens of thousands are still missing and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.

Israeli troops fired stun grenades and blocked hundreds of Israeli left-wing activists from staging a solidarity rally on Friday in a Palestinian town that was set ablaze by radical Jewish settlers earlier this week, protesters said.

The soldiers shoved at least two protesters to the ground, activists said, pressing their knees into their necks and backs before briefly detaining them.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces shot and killed a teenage boy Thursday in the north of the occupied West Bank, the latest in a flare-up of violence that has raged for months.

The ministry said Mohammed Saleem, 15, was wounded with a live bullet in the back along with another teenager who was hit by a gunshot in the chest in Azoun village near the town of Qalqilya. Saleem died at a hospital.

The scene signaled a grave national emergency — dozens of riot police charged through the streets of Tel Aviv as crowds of anti-government protesters howled and roared. Their mission: to rescue Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife from a swanky salon where she was getting her hair done.

The protesters' Wednesday night siege of the beauty parlor, accompanied by chants of "shame, shame," cast a spotlight on Sara Netanyahu, a divisive figure long intertwined with her husband's political career.

The stuttering blasts of M-16s shattered the quiet in a West Bank village, surrounded by barley fields and olive groves. Young Palestinian men in Jaba once wanted to farm, residents say, but now, more and more want to fight.

Last week, dozens of them, wearing balaclavas and brandishing rifles with photos of their dead comrades plastered on the clips, burst into a school playground — showcasing Jaba's new militant group and paying tribute to its founder and another gunman who were killed in an Israeli military raid last month.

A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Friday for a six-month mission, after overcoming trouble with one of the capsule's docking hooks.

The SpaceX capsule and its four astronauts had to wait 65 feet (20 meters) from the orbiting lab, as flight controllers in California scrambled to come up with a software fix.

Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson has agreed to plead guilty to U.S. foreign corruption violations and pay more than $206 million for breaking a deal with the Justice Department over charges of bribery and falsifying records in countries from China to Kuwait.

The U.S. Justice Department said the company, based in Stockholm, violated a 2019 agreement by failing to provide documents and information the agency needed for its investigation and to bring charges against individuals accused of misconduct.

An Israeli-led crowdfunding campaign has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Palestinian residents of a West Bank town that was set ablaze by radical Jewish settlers, the organizer of the drive said Thursday.

Some 12,000 Israelis donated nearly 1.7 million shekels (465,000 dollars) since the campaign was launched this week. The fundraising effort was a rare instance of cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians at a time when tensions have been surging between the sides over spiraling violence.