The Kremlin said Thursday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "wrong" to suggest Russia was dragging China into the Ukraine conflict, after Kyiv claimed many Chinese citizens were fighting for Moscow.

"Partner, friend, and comrade. China has always taken a very balanced position, so Zelensky is wrong," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, in a briefing call.

Turkey is holding technical-level talks with Israel to ease tensions over Syria but is not moving toward normalizing ties, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Wednesday.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denounced French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement that Paris could recognize a Palestinian state by June, saying it would be a "prize" for terrorism.

A French judicial delegation will travel to Lebanon this month to meet with the judge in charge of the investigation into the deadly explosion at the port of Beirut in 2020, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP on Tuesday.

"Two French judges will arrive in Beirut in the last week of this month," said the official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Gaza's civil defense agency said an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Shujaiya area of Gaza City killed at least 20 people on Wednesday, as the military said they were looking into the attack.

The agency's spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the strike resulted in "20 martyrs and more than 40 injured" and the search for bodies in the rubble was ongoing.

Moscow on Wednesday slammed France and summoned its ambassador after it said a Russian foreign ministry employee had been detained at a Paris airport on Sunday as he tried to enter the country.

"In the course of the conversation, the Russian foreign ministry issued a strong protest to the head of the French embassy. As a result of the demarche, our colleague was eventually allowed to enter the country," Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a briefing.

A Lebanese judge on Tuesday referred former central bank governor Riad Salameh to court for trial over the alleged embezzlement of $44 million of the bank's funds, a judicial official said.

The move came seven months after Salameh was arrested in Lebanon over the case.

Elon Musk on Tuesday described Peter Navarro, a senior White House trade advisor, as "truly a moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks" in a growing rift over Donald Trump's tariff policy.

Musk, a key aide to the president, has signaled opposition to the tariffs, and the Tesla CEO hit out after Navarro described him as "not a car manufacturer" but "a car assembler."

Russia on Tuesday said it had retaken one of the last important villages that was held by Ukraine in its Kursk region, with Moscow having recaptured most of the border area since Ukraine's shock August 2024 attack.

The Russian defence ministry said its troops had taken control of the village of Guyevo, near the Ukraine border and south of the regional hub of Sudzha, which Moscow reclaimed last month.

Israeli strikes Monday on southern Lebanon killed three people, according to the health ministry, with Israel's military saying it had "eliminated" a Hezbollah commander.

Israel has continued to strike Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire that largely halted more than a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, including two months of all-out war.