Israel's military said Friday it launched air strikes near the presidential palace in Damascus after the Israeli defense minister threatened intervention if Syrian authorities failed to protect the Druze minority.

Syria's Druze spiritual leader has condemned a "genocidal campaign" against his community after sectarian clashes killed 102 people.

A group of activists organizing an aid boat for Gaza said it was attacked on Friday by Israeli drones in international waters off Malta as they headed towards the Palestinian territory.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblat has urged members of the minority community in Syria to reject "Israeli interference" following Israeli threats against Damascus authorities if they harm the Druze.

"Preserving the (Druze) brothers (in Syria) involves rejecting Israeli interference," Jumblat said following a meeting with Druze figures in Beirut to discuss sectarian violence that erupted in Syria this week.

Assailants killed 15 fighters from the Druze minority in an ambush near the Syrian capital, a war monitor said Thursday, after days of deadly sectarian clashes.

Syria said Israel launched new strikes near Damascus on Wednesday, after sectarian clashes left nearly 40 dead in two days and Israel warned against attacks targeting the Druze minority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel carried out a strike in Syria on Wednesday on an "extremist group" preparing to attack members of the Druze community in the Damascus region.

The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday that it had foiled a weapons shipment intended for the Sudanese army, which has accused the Gulf state of backing rival paramilitaries in the country's two-year war.

"The security services succeeded in preventing the transfer of a quantity of military equipment to the Sudanese Armed Forces following the arrest of members of a cell involved in unauthorized mediation, brokering and illicit trafficking of military equipment," UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said according to official news agency WAM.

The Palestinian Red Crescent aid group said one of its medics, Asaad al-Nsasrah, was released by Israel on Tuesday alongside nine other detainees from Gaza.

Prisoners released by Israel have said they were ordered by Israel not to speak to the media and fear for their safety.

Israel's military said it arrested Ali Samoudi, a well-known journalist, in an overnight raid in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the north of the territory.

Samoudi previously worked for international outlets including CNN and Al Jazeera. In 2022, he was injured in the same spray of gunfire that killed prominent Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. U.S. officials say Akleh was shot dead by an Israeli sniper.

At least 12 people including children were killed overnight in Gaza by Israeli strikes, hospital workers said Wednesday.

The pre-dawn strikes hit three houses in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp, according to staff at the Al-Aqsa hospital, which received the bodies. Among the dead were three children, including two brothers whose bodies arrived in pieces, according to the hospital's morgue.