France on Wednesday insisted on a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a day after US President Donald Trump unveiled a Middle East peace plan Paris said it would "carefully study". 

Syria government forces recaptured the strategic highway town of Maaret al-Numan from jihadist and allied rebels on Wednesday, the army said, returning for the first time in seven years.

US President Donald Trump's Middle East plan on Tuesday prompted a lukewarm response from Europe and the UN, and a furious rebuke from key Muslim countries who denounced it as betrayal of the Palestinians.

Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas immediately rejected the U.S.' Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal Tuesday, after President Donald Trump said Jerusalem would remain Israel's "undivided capital."

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed a U.S. peace plan for the Middle East Tuesday as a "realistic path to a durable peace" that assures Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has announced his long promised "ultimate deal" for Israeli-Palestinian peace, has since coming to office maintained a staunchly pro-Israel stance. 

U.S. President Donald Trump Tuesday unveiled long-awaited details of a U.S. plan for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warning it may represent the last chance at statehood for the Palestinians.

The Israeli army said Tuesday it was beefing up forces in the Jordan Valley, a swathe of the occupied West Bank expected to feature in U.S. President Donald Trump's long-awaited peace plan.

Palestinians staged protests Tuesday against U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan, hours before it was to be unveiled in Washington. 

The Arab League said it will convene an urgent meeting on Saturday in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.