Indonesia has strongly condemned Israel’s unilateral decision to legalize nine Jewish outpost settlements in the Palestinian West Bank and authorize the construction of 10,000 new houses in the area.

As Kuwait will soon celebrate its national day and the 55th anniversary of Indonesia-Kuwait diplomatic relations, the Gulf country is seeking ever closer diplomatic relations with Indonesia.

For the first state visit by an Iranian president to China in more than 20 years, Raisi has brought a large trade and finance delegation to Beijing and was earlier greeted by Xi on a red carpet.

Rayyana Barnawi will join fellow Saudi Ali Al-Qarni on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

As the death toll continues to climb, the Turkish Embassy in Jakarta has opened several channels to receive both monetary and goods donations to help earthquake victims in Turkey, while the Indonesian government prepares to deploy its first medical team to help with relief efforts on the ground.

The government is preparing to dispatch a search and rescue team, a medical team and other humanitarian aid to Turkey as the death toll from Monday's earthquakes reaches 17,000, with thousands more injured or left homeless in winter.

Officials and medics said 12,873 people had died in Turkey and 3,162 in Syria from Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 16,035.

A family of three, which included a Balinese woman and her dual-national infant, were among the more than 11,200 people killed in the two massive earthquakes that decimated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria.

For two days and nights since the 7.8 magnitude quake an impromptu army of rescuers have worked in freezing temperatures to find those still entombed among ruins that pockmark several cities either side of the border.

Indonesia said it was prepared to provide assistance to regions affected by a series of deadly earthquakes that rocked parts of Turkey and Syria on Monday, government officials have said.

As the scale of the disaster became ever more apparent, the death toll looked likely to rise considerably. One UN official said thousands of children may have died.

"Event overview maps show that potentially 23 million people are exposed, including around five million vulnerable populations," the World Health Organization's senior emergencies officer Adelheid Marschang said.

The confirmed death toll across the two countries has soared above 4,300 after a swarm of strong tremors near the Turkey-Syria border -- the largest of which measured at a massive 7.8-magnitude.

- Aug. 14, 2021 - HAITI - A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck southern Haiti, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying or damaging about 13,000 homes.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake sent people rushing into the streets in the country's north, where air strikes and shelling have already traumatised the population and weakened the foundations of many buildings.

The 7.8-magnitude night-time tremor, followed hours later by a slightly smaller one, wiped out entire sections of major Turkish cities in a region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts.

AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the earthquake hit before dawn near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Syrian border.

Locals officials said five people died in the province of Osmaniye and 10 more in Sanliurfa, which sits near Turkey's border with Syria.

The quake struck at 04:17 am local time (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 kilometres (11 miles), the US agency said, with a 6.7-magnitude aftershock striking 15 minutes later.

Israeli forces in the West Bank killed 10 Palestinians on Thursday, officials in the occupied territory said, nine of them in a raid the Israeli military described as a counterterrorism operation.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi met her Gambian counterpart Mamadou Tangara and Guinean Transportation Minister Felix Lamah on two separate occasions in Jakarta on Tuesday, during which she reaffirmed numerous bilateral agreements between Indonesia and the two African countries.

NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said in an interview that Ethiopia's Aircraft Investigation Bureau (EAIB) had made errors in its report.

The comments by Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed normalisation with Saudi Arabia in talks with White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Netanyahu, who returned to office last month with the formation of a new government, was at the helm in 2020 when Israel established ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco as part of the Abraham Accords.

Indonesia's foreign minister has called on Israel to initiate a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue during an open debate at the UNSC.

In 2019, the last year before the pandemic struck, some 2.6 million people performed the haj. The kingdom allowed only limited numbers from its residents in 2020 and 2021 before it welcomed back one million foreign pilgrims in 2022.

The incident involving the 225-metre-long Marshall Islands-registered M/V Glory had briefly sparked fears of a repeat of a major 2021 blockage when the giant container ship Ever Given became diagonally wedged in the canal.

The move by firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir angered the Palestinians and US allies in the Arab world, while Western governments warned such moves threaten the fragile status quo at Jerusalem's holy sites.

The testing requirement is imposed on all travelers regardless of vaccination status, the agency added.

The Palestinians on Saturday welcomed a vote by the United Nations General Assembly requesting that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) provide an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.