Israeli strikes on Saturday killed two people and sparked wildfires in southern Lebanon, state media said, with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah announcing the death of one fighter.

Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in the eight months since the Gaza war began, triggered by the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack.

The deadly clashes have intensified in recent weeks, causing multiple brush fires on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border and raising fears the conflict could broaden.

Syria's shattered healthcare system has been forgotten by the world at large, a top WHO official said, urging new, creative thinking to halt the exodus of medical staff abroad.

Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization's Eastern Mediterranean regional director, said young doctors needed to be offered better prospects than practising fourth-century medicine in dire conditions.

Four Israeli hostages rescued Saturday from a central Gaza refugee camp were freed by troops "from the heart of a civilian neighbourhood" in two simultaneous raids, the military said.

The army named the rescued captives as Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41.

It said they were rescued after a "complex daytime operation" which authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said left dozens dead.

All four were kidnapped by Hamas militants from the Nova music festival on October 7, the military said in a statement.

Israel said its forces rescued on Saturday four hostages alive from a Gaza refugee camp where the Hamas-run government media office reported attacks left 210 Palestinians dead and hundreds wounded.

The Israeli military said the four, who were in "good medical condition", had been kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas's October 7 attack that sparked war with Israel, now in its ninth month.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels have detained more than a dozen aid workers, including 11 United Nations staff, in an apparently coordinated crackdown, the Yemeni government, aid groups and the UN said Friday.

The abductions underline the perilous task facing aid workers in Yemen, whose long-running civil war has precipitated one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

"Huthi de facto authorities have detained 11 United Nations national personnel working in Yemen," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Israel's army said on Friday it had killed 17 militants the day before in an air strike on a UN school in central Gaza, raising its previous toll from nine.

Thursday's Israeli strike hit a school operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in the Nuseirat area of central Gaza where thousands of displaced people were sheltering.

The nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said that at least 37 people were killed in the strike.

Israel's military said its forces struck Friday a UN-run school near Gaza City, the second such facility hit within two days, with the Hamas-run government media office reporting three fatalities.

The army said the strike targeted Hamas "terrorists" who were operating from a container on the premises of a school operated by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in northern Gaza's Al-Shati refugee camp.

The media office said an Israeli aircraft had targeted the school, killing three and wounding seven.

The upcoming inclusion of Israel on a UN list of countries and armed forces determined to be failing to protect children in war prompted a furious Israeli response Friday.

The annual "Children and Armed Conflict" report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is not due to be published until June 18, but Israel's UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, spoke out after receiving private notification of the inclusion.

"I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision," Erdan said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Nuseirat municipality in central Gaza said Friday that the town's mayor, Iyad al-Maghari, had been killed in an Israeli strike while visiting a water pumping station.

Maghari had been at the water management facility that serves Nuseirat when an air strike hit it at around 10:30 pm (1930 GMT) on Thursday, spokesman Muhammad al-Salhi told AFP at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where mourners gathered ahead of the funeral.

Israeli leaders have increased their warnings to Lebanon's Hezbollah Islamist movement as cross-border violence escalates by the day, but experts believe that the risk of all-out war remains limited.

Is the violence intensifying?

Hezbollah says it is fighting in support of its ally Hamas, which is battling Israel in an eight-month-old war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the Palestinian Islamist group's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel.