Twenty-eight Algerian demonstrators were handed one-year jail sentences Tuesday for "undermining national unity" by bearing the Berber minority's flag during anti-regime protests, a prisoners' rights group said.

Sirens wailed, residents ran to bomb shelters and both sides feared yet another war as an Israeli targeted strike killing an Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday sparked exchanges of fire.

The EU's top court ruled Tuesday that food products from occupied Palestinian territories must be labelled as such, drawing an angry response from Israel which slammed a "double standard."

Iraqi protesters shut down state institutions Tuesday as the United Nations stepped up pressure on the government to enact a raft of reforms in response to anti-government rallies.

Israel's military killed a commander of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in a strike on his home in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, triggering exchanges of fire and fears of a severe escalation in violence.

A Yemeni man stabbed three actors at a performance in the Saudi capital, police said on Tuesday, in the first such attack since the ultra-conservative kingdom began easing decades-old restrictions on entertainment.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called Tuesday for an international accord on the fate of foreign jihadists being held in the Middle East, saying it was not up to Syria and Iraq "to solve the problem for everyone."

"We need international cooperation to solve the problem," Guterres, who is attending the Paris Peace Forum alongside some 30 world leaders, told France's RTL radio. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday he would tell US counterpart Donald Trump that Washington must do more to implement a ceasefire deal they agreed in order to halt Turkey's offensive in Syria.

Most schools in southern Iraq were closed on Tuesday, after teachers announced a general strike in an attempt to boost the protest movement that has rocked the country since October 1.

An Israeli strike on Damascus on Tuesday hit the home of a leading Palestinian figure, killing his son and one other person, Syrian state news agency SANA and his group said.

Two rockets targeted the home of a senior figure of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, Akram al-Ajouri, "killing his son Muadh and another person," SANA said.