Hezbollah said it fired more than 100 rockets at Israeli positions on Wednesday in retaliation for a strike that killed a senior commander in Lebanon, the movement's second such loss in recent weeks.

Hezbollah has traded near daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza, but a recent uptick in bellicose rhetoric from both sides has raised fears of all-out war.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled southern Gaza since Israel issued an evacuation order, amid fears of a new offensive in the area which came under Israeli bombardment on Wednesday.

On Israel's northern front, Lebanon's Hezbollah said it fired 100 rockets at Israeli targets in retaliation for a strike that killed a senior commander, heightening fears of full-scale war between the longtime foes.

Investigators in Germany and Sweden on Wednesday arrested eight suspects allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government over alleged participation in crimes against humanity in Syria, prosecutors said.

The arrests, five in Germany and three in Sweden, represent the latest attempt to pursue justice for the victims of abuses committed in Syria's civil war.

Iranians will vote on Friday in a presidential runoff pitting the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian against ultraconservative anti-Western former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Around 61 million Iranians are eligible to cast ballots in the election, which was called after the death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.

It will be held amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear programme and popular discontent over the state of Iran's sanctions-hit economy.

Wafaa Elwan's five-year-old son cannot sleep in the Gaza tent city where she and her seven children shelter, but it is not the guns of war that cause his daily nightmare.

"My son can't sleep through the night because he can't stop scratching his body," the anxious mother said.

The boy has white and red blotches over his feet and legs, and more under his T-shirt. He is one of many Gazans suffering from skin infections ranging from scabies to chicken pox, lice, impetigo and other debilitating rashes.

Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in two military operations in the occupied West Bank where tensions have risen because of the Gaza war, Palestinian and Israeli sources said Wednesday.

One night-time air strike killed four men at a refugee camp near the town of Tulkarm, which has seen a surge in violence as Israel has intensified raids.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry said the four were "killed as a result of the occupation's bombing of Nur Shams camp".

Making concessions to Taliban authorities by excluding civil society groups from UN-hosted talks was a price worth paying for further engagement, the EU's special envoy to Afghanistan said Tuesday.

Rights groups have strongly criticised the UN move to exclude women's rights and other groups from the Doha meeting which ended Monday, in a compromise to allow the Taliban government's participation.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said Tuesday that 1.9 million people -- 80 percent of the territory's population -- were now displaced, adding she was "deeply concerned" by reports of new evacuation orders for Khan Yunis.

The United Nations has estimated that up to 250,000 people are impacted by the Israeli military order for civilians to leave parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in Gaza, which has a total population of 2.4 million.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled a southern Gaza district on Tuesday, forced to forage for food and water in blistering heat after an Israeli evacuation order set off fears of a major new battle in its war on Hamas.

The United Nations estimated that up to 250,000 people are impacted by the Israeli military order for civilians to leave Al-Qarara, Bani Suhaila and other localities near the territory's second city of Khan Yunis.

Clashes between armed protesters and guards of Turkish positions in Syria's north killed seven people, a medical source and a war monitor said Tuesday in a revised toll.

The protests Monday in the Turkish-controlled border strip followed a rampage a day earlier against Syrian businesses and properties in central Turkey, where a Syrian man had been accused of harassing a child.

"Seven protesters have been killed... during exchanges of fire with people guarding Turkish positions," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.