Iraq's biggest tribe has appealed for weapons to defend itself against the Islamic State jihadist group after several of its members were abducted and killed in a central desert region.

Emitari-backed Yemeni government forces seized Hodeida airport from Huthi rebels on Wednesday, the coalition said, in a major step towards retaking the key Red Sea port city.

The external hard drive had been smuggled from Syrian regime territory through jihadist-held towns and into Turkey. When Ghazwan Koronful finally got his hands on it, he sighed in relief.

Israeli warplanes pounded Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday in a new flare-up of hostilities that saw dozens of rockets and mortar shells fired from the Palestinian enclave, the army said.

Facing a major funding shortfall, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency is planning to defer payment of salaries and suspend some of its operations in Gaza, an official said Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt and adviser Jared Kushner on Tuesday met with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Rebel shellfire slammed into the southern Syrian city of Sweida on Tuesday for the first time in three years, a monitor said, as fresh regime reinforcements arrived in the area.

Syria's foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned Turkish military patrols around the northern city of Manbij, launched the previous day under a deal with the United States.

Seven shepherds and farmers have been found murdered after the Islamic State jihadist group kidnapped dozens of people in the desert region of central Iraq, a local official said Tuesday.

A U.S. official has blamed Israel for a deadly strike along Syria's eastern border with Iraq, raising many questions over the target and victims of the raid. This is what we know:

- Where was it?