Seven suspected Al-Qaida militants were killed in an apparent U.S. drone strike on the Yemeni port city of Mukalla which the jihadists overran earlier this month, a local official said on Wednesday.

The overnight strike hit a vehicle parked near the presidential palace in Mukalla, capital of Hadramawt province, witnessed said.

A year after rival Palestinian nationalist movements Hamas and Fatah agreed to end their bitter divisions, the unity deal they signed appears to be on the brink of collapse.

This week, a ministerial delegation from the Ramallah-based consensus government headed to the Gaza Strip, the stronghold of Hamas, for what was to be a week-long visit focused on resolving a long-running dispute over employees.

Kuwait has deported a prominent opposition figure to neighbouring Saudi Arabia months after revoking his citizenship, his group said Wednesday.

Saad al-Ajmi, former spokesman of the Popular Action Movement (PAM), was arrested by secret police on Tuesday and escorted to the Saudi city of Khafji by road at night, PAM said in a statement.

Shiite rebels in Yemen on Wednesday demanded a complete end to attacks by a Saudi-led coalition as a condition for U.N.-sponsored talks, a day after the alliance declared an end to the first phase of its operations.

"We demand, after a complete end to the aggression against Yemen and the lifting of the blockade, to resume political dialogue... under the sponsorship of the United Nations," Mohammed Abdulsalam, the spokesman for the Huthi rebels, said in a statement. 

The name of a Palestinian teen burned alive by his Jewish kidnappers has been removed from a memorial to victims of terror attacks, an Israeli official said Wednesday, after family objections.

Haim Pitoussi, spokesman of the National Insurance Institute which administers the memorial wall in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery, confirmed that the name of Mohammed Abu Khder, 16, had been erased.

President Barack Obama called on Iran help find a political solution in crisis-torn Yemen, accusing the Islamic republic of contributing to the conflict there.

Washington has accused Tehran of supplying arms to Huthi rebels who have seized power in Yemen, triggering a month-long Saudi-led Arab air campaign that has increased the risk of a regional conflict.

U.N. Security Council member New Zealand is working on a draft resolution to revive long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

France has begun consultations on a text that would outline the parameters of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, but Ambassador Jim McLay said Tuesday that New Zealand's friendship with Israel and the Palestinians means it could make a contribution.

The U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday its warplanes carried out 22 strikes in Iraq over 24 hours targeting the Islamic State jihadist group north and west of Baghdad.

This was the second 24 hour period in a row of a larger-than-usual number of coalition strikes against IS, after it carried out 26 from Sunday to Monday.

A Saudi-led coalition declared an end Tuesday to its military campaign four weeks after launching air strikes against rebels in Yemen, saying their threat to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors had been removed.

The coalition has "ended Operation Decisive Storm based on a request by the Yemeni government and President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi," its spokesman, Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri, told a press briefing in the Saudi capital.

An Abu Dhabi court Tuesday ordered psychiatric tests on an Emirati woman accused of two jihad-inspired attacks against Americans including the murder of a teacher in a shopping mall toilet.

Alaa Bader al-Hashemi is on trial at the Federal Supreme Court on charges of stabbing to death teacher Ibolya Ryan, 47.