The party of Israel's ex-military chief Benny Gantz on Tuesday pulled out of planned talks on forming a unity government with main rival Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following deadlocked elections.

Tunisia's court of appeal rejected on Tuesday a fresh request to release jailed media mogul and presidential candidate Nabil Karoui, one of his lawyers said, less than two weeks before the election runoff.

Two demonstrators were killed and more than 200 people injured Tuesday, health officials said, in clashes with security forces during protests in Baghdad and the provinces that mounted the first challenge to Iraq's fragile one-year-old government.

A U.S. navy official visited Saudi Arabia to discuss maritime defense coordination following last month's twin attacks on key oil facilities in the kingdom. 

A bomb blast Tuesday near a key oil field in eastern Syria targeted U.S.-backed fighters but killed three workers instead, a war monitor said Tuesday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said his country's patience with U.S. efforts to create a safe zone in northern Syria was running out, indicating an operation was imminent. 

The U.N. special envoy for Syria said Monday that the convening of a committee to draft a new constitution for Syria on Oct. 30 "should be a sign of hope for the long-suffering Syrian people" — but it will matter only if it becomes a step out of the more than eight-year conflict.

Geir Pedersen told a U.N. Security Council meeting on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly that the committee alone cannot resolve the conflict, saying that actions to de-escalate violence and move toward a nationwide cease-fire "are absolutely essential."

Israel is quietly allowing thousands of Palestinians to enter from the Gaza Strip to conduct business and work menial jobs, apparently as part of understandings with the ruling Hamas militant group aimed at preventing a fourth war in the blockaded territory.

Israel effectively revoked thousands of work permits when it joined Egypt in imposing a crippling blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. The blockade, along with three wars between Hamas and Israel, has devastated the economy in Gaza, where unemployment is over 50%.

The son of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has denied a financial settlement with the government, spoke out in defence of the kingdom Tuesday ahead of the first anniversary of the killing.

Yemen's Huthi rebels have freed 290 prisoners, including dozens of survivors from a Saudi-led strike on a detention centre earlier this month, the ICRC said on Monday.