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UNITED NATIONS — The UN special envoy for Yemen warned Wednesday that the conflict-torn Middle East nation is "one step" from famine, with 31 million people in need of humanitarian assistance compared with just 7 million two years ago.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors that all parties to the conflict are responsible for the dire suffering of the Yemeni people until there is "a true ceasefire."

The humanitarian crisis in the Arab world's poorest country has escalated as the conflict has intensified.

Ground fighting and Saudi-led air strikes targeting Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels killed nearly 100 people Wednesday.

The fighting in Yemen pits the Houthis and allied troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni militants and loyalists of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is now based in Saudi Arabia. The rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in September. In March, a Saudi-led and US-backed coalition began launching air strikes against the rebels and their allies.

The conflict has left 20 million Yemenis without access to safe drinking water and uprooted over 1 million people from their homes, Ould Cheikh Ahmed said.

A near-blockade of Yemen's ports has made it very difficult to deliver humanitarian aid. But the International Committee of the Red Cross said a ship carrying 1,000 tons of food and three large generators from Oman had docked in Yemen's Hodeida port on Wednesday.

"In view of the economic blockade that affects all the people in Yemen, the arrival of this emergency aid is a welcome development," said Antoine Grand, who heads the ICRC in Yemen. "The food and generators will make a difference for tens of thousands of people directly affected by the armed conflict."

While the ship's arrival was a rare piece of good news, fighting kicked off at dawn Wednesday in the cities of Ibb, Aden, Taiz, Marib, Dhale and the Houthi stronghold of Saada, killing nearly 100 people, including many civilians, Yemeni officials said. In Aden dozens of shells fell on densely populated neighbourhoods, while artillery duels shook the city of Taiz.

The Houthi-controlled interior ministry said that some 20 civilians were killed Tuesday by Saudi-led air raids.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who mediated talks between the parties in Geneva last week, said that despite the deep divisions and failure to reach any agreement, "both sides showed signs of constructive engagement and there is an emerging common ground upon which we can build to achieve an eventual ceasefire coupled with the withdrawal of combatants."

He called for a humanitarian pause during the current holy month of Ramadan as a first step towards a sustainable ceasefire that would be monitored by "an international, impartial mechanism".

In efforts to reach a truce, Yemeni security officials said representatives of the southern separatist movement were meeting with the Houthis in the Omani capital, Muscat.

A delegation from the party of former president Saleh was also headed to Moscow to meet Russian officials, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to reporters.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the Omanis and others are trying to facilitate the UN-led process.

THE HAGUE — The Palestinian foreign minister will hand evidence of alleged Israeli crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, but it is unlikely that the submissions will speed the court's progress in its most politically charged case.

Riad Al Malki will give two files to the court's prosecutor, outlining alleged crimes in the occupied West Bank and in the 2014 Gaza war, the Palestinian mission in The Hague said.

But while his visit to the court will keep the public gaze on the case, the submissions will have no legal force and progress in the court's examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unlikely for many months.

The Palestinian Authority joined the Hague-based court in April and prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has launched a preliminary inquiry into alleged crimes committed by all parties in last year's Gaza war.

The submissions are intended to contribute to the preliminary investigation, which covers the period starting June 14, 2014.

A ceasefire in August ended the 50 days of fighting between Gaza fighters and Israel, in which health officials said more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed. Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

UN investigators said on Monday that Israel and Palestinian groups committed grave abuses of international humanitarian law during the 2014 Gaza conflict that may amount to war crimes.

Israel disputed the findings, saying its forces acted "according to the highest international standards".

It has criticised the ICC decision to open an examination, arguing that the Palestinian Authority is not a state and cannot therefore be a member. It has also said the examination will make it harder to conclude a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Without enforcement powers, the court depends on voluntary cooperation of states, including non-members such as Israel, to collect information.

In deciding whether to cooperate, Israel is likely to be guided by indications from prosecutors over the line their investigation will take. The first indication of this is expected in November when prosecutors publish their regular reports into the progress of preliminary examinations.

During preliminary inquiries, prosecutors use publicly available information to establish whether crimes were committed of gravity sufficient to warrant a full investigation.

They typically include factfinding missions to countries involved, even if they are non-members.

Any trip to the Palestinian Territories would require Israel’s cooperation, since the West Bank and Gaza can only be accessed via Israeli airports. That gives Israel substantial leverage over the court’s investigation.

Nonetheless, a refusal to meet with ICC officials would place the country in awkward company, since even implacable opponents of the court have received ICC prosecutors, including Russia in relation to inquiries the ICC is conducting in Ukraine and Georgia into conflicts where Russian involvement is alleged.

UNITED NATIONS — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the UN Security Council to take "urgent action" on Syria amid daily atrocities and rights abuses, warning the war-torn country would otherwise slip deeper into chaos.

In his monthly report to the council on Syria aid access, seen by Reuters on Wednesday, Ban did not specify action, but his former aid chief Valerie Amos appealed in April for an arms embargo and sanctions for violations of humanitarian law.

"I also ask the council to take urgent action in the face of the continuing atrocities and human rights abuses taking place in Syria on a daily basis," Ban wrote in the June 23 report. "Lack of action will throw Syria deeper into chaos and deprive the country of a peaceful and prosperous future."

The council failed last year to refer the four-year war in Syria to the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Syrian ally Russia, backed by China, vetoed the move and three other resolutions threatening President Bashar Al Assad's government with sanctions.

Ban said some 12.2 million people in Syria need help, including more than 5 million children. About 7.6 million are internally displaced and more than 4 million have fled to neighbouring countries and North Africa.

UN Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura will continue consultations with parties to the conflict into July and Ban described the goal of finding a political solution to the conflict as "ambitious, but we must not lose sight of it".

A Syrian government crackdown on a pro-democracy movement in 2011 led to an armed uprising. Daesh militants have taken advantage of the chaos to declare a caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Ban said some 422,000 people in Syria remained besieged — 228,000 by Daesh, 167,500 by government forces and 26,500 by armed groups.

"Islamic State [Daesh] continued to violate international humanitarian law and commit human rights abuses," Ban said.

He said on May 5 the United Nations received reports that Daesh crucified and killed a 15-year-old boy after accusing him of stealing money and weapons from a vehicle, while a man was reportedly beheaded for theft on May 14.

Ban said he was also concerned the Syrian government "continues to indiscriminately drop barrel bombs on defenceless civilians in populated neighbourhoods" and "by the indiscriminate and relentless use of mortars and shelling of residential neighbourhoods by non-State armed groups".

KUWAIT CITY — Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have begun talks to resolve a dispute that halted oil production in the neutral zone between the Gulf neighbours, the Kuwaiti oil minister said.

"A joint committee formed by the two countries... has recently held its first meeting in Riyadh," the KUNA news agency quoted Ali Al Omair as saying late Tuesday.

The dispute has seen the closure of the Khafji and Wafra oil fields in the neutral zone, which have been pumping for more than half a century.

The two fields together produced more than 500,000 barrels per day which was equally shared between the two countries.

Omair said there was no timeframe for the talks but that he expected a breakthrough shortly.

The offshore Khafji filed was shut down by the Saudi side in October over environmental issues. 

Wafra was closed in May for a two-week maintenance and did not resume production.

Industry sources say Kuwaiti authorities were unhappy with Saudi Arabia for renewing an operating agreement for the Wafra field with Saudi Arabian Chevron for 30 years in 2009 without consulting them.

In response, it stopped issuing or renewing visas for Chevron foreign employees.

The halt to output comes amid a worldwide supply glut that has driven down prices of crude.

The dispute has been a blow particularly to Kuwait which, unlike its much larger neighbour, has little spare output capacity to compensate for drops in production.

MOGADISHU — A car bomb targeting a convoy of military instructors from the United Arab Emirates exploded in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday, killing at least three Somalis but injuring no UAE citizens, security officials said.

The officials said the UAE ambassador was also travelling in the convoy, which was attacked in Mogadishu's Hodan District. He was unhurt. Seven other people were wounded, police said.

The Islamist militant group Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had "inflicted casualties".

Hussein Afrah, a Somali military officer, said the car bomb targeted the UAE trainers, who were in a bullet-proof car. Those killed were Somali soldiers, he said.

"The incident took place near the military hospital where UAE trains Somali military. Three Somali military... died and several other civilians who were passing by were injured," Afrah told Reuters.

A wounded soldier who preferred to be named only as Ahmed said the UAE ambassador to Somalia was also in the convoy and was unharmed.

"The UAE ambassador was in a bullet-proof car ahead of us and the car bomb missed its target," he told Reuters.

The ambassador, Mohammed Othman Al Hammadi, said in a statement carried by UAE state news agency WAM that the attack targeted a relief convoy.

"A terrorist car bomb targeted an Emirati relief convoy [which was] in ... Mogadishu for the blessed month of Ramadan, resulting in the death of three Somalis and wounded others," he was quoted saying.

Al Hammadi did not give more details of who was in the convoy, or if he was part of it.

Nicholas Kay, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, also confirmed the attack on the convoy but gave no details of who was in it.

"I condemn today's appalling attack against innocent civilians and dedicated international officials who are providing critical peace-building and state building support to Somalia," Kay said in a statement.

Al Shabaab put the number of those killed at 17, but this was not independently verifiable. In the past, al Shabaab has exaggerated the number of casualties it has inflicted and government officials have played down losses.

A Reuters witness saw the ruined car in which the bomb had been detonated, a damaged military pickup and a pool of blood.

Al Qaeda-aligned group has in the past stepped up attacks during the fasting month of Ramadan, which began a week ago.

On Sunday,  Al Shabaab militants detonated a car bomb in the capital and shot their way into a national intelligence agency training site.

Four Islamist gunmen were killed, the internal security ministry said, adding that the government did not suffer any casualties during the attack. Al Shabaab said more than 10 intelligence officials were killed.

An African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali army offensive last year pushed al Shabaab out of major strongholds, but the group still controls some rural areas. It launches regular attacks in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya, which also has forces with AMISOM.

On Monday and Tuesday, police said the group had killed six soldiers and an elder in separate incidents in the capital, the south central town of Beledweyne and the seaside town of Marka. Al Shabaab put the number killed at nine.

TEHRAN — Iran has hardened its stance less than a week before the deadline for a nuclear deal, with its top leader rejecting a long-term freeze on nuclear research as it ratified a bill banning access to military sites and scientists.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also insisted that Iran will only sign a deal if international sanctions are lifted first, which could further complicate the negotiations. The ratified bill, now binding law, calls for all sanctions to be lifted the first day of implementation.

The supreme leader has backed his negotiators amid criticism from hard-liners, but his latest remarks may narrow their room to manoeuvre ahead of a self-imposed June 30 deadline for a potentially groundbreaking deal with world powers that would curb Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for lifting sanctions.

Iran's constitutional watchdog, known as the Guardian Council, ratified legislation banning access to military sites and scientists, making it binding law, according to state TV.

The bill would still allow for international inspections of Iranian nuclear sites within the framework of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

The United States — which is negotiating the deal with Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — has said the sanctions would be gradually lifted as inspectors verify Iran's compliance with the deal.

Speaking Tuesday night in comments broadcast on Iranian state television, Khamenei said demands that Iran halt the research and development portion of its nuclear program constitute "excessive coercion".

"We don't accept 10-year restriction. We have told the negotiating team how many specific years of restrictions are acceptable," Khamenei said. "Research and development must continue during the years of restrictions."

Khamenei said the US is offering a "complicated formula" for lifting sanctions. He said that waiting for the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to verify Tehran's cooperation would take too long.

"Lifting sanctions can't depend on implementation of Iran's obligations," he said.

Khamenei also said he rejects any inspection of military sites or allowing Iranian scientists to be interviewed. Iran's nuclear scientists have been the targets of attacks, both inside the Islamic republic and elsewhere.

The Americans' "goal is to uproot and destroy the country's nuclear industry," he said. "They want to keep up the pressure and are not after a complete lifting of sanctions."

In a statement Sunday, the US State Department said inspections remain a key part of any final deal.

Western nations have long suspected Iran is covertly pursuing a nuclear weapons capability alongside its civilian programme, charges denied by Tehran, which insists its atomic program is for purely peaceful purposes.

Negotiations likely will begin in earnest in the coming days in Europe. On Wednesday, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported that deputy foreign ministers Abbas Araghchi and Majid Takht-e-Ravanchi had resumed talks with Helga Schmidt, a deputy of European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. It did not elaborate.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Activists aboard a flotilla of boats are to soon set sail for Gaza in a fresh bid to break Israel's blockade of the territory, five years after a similar attempt ended in a deadly raid.

The so-called Freedom Flotilla III — a convoy of ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists, at least one European lawmaker and an Arab-Israeli MP — will try to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip by the end of the month.

Their campaign comes as Israel faces heavy international pressure over its actions in Gaza, with a UN report released Monday saying both Israel and Palestinian fighters may have committed war crimes during last year's conflict in the besieged coastal enclave.

Israel's blockade of the territory dates to 2006, after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier, and was tightened a year later when the Islamist movement consolidated control of Gaza.

"We're not alone in considering the blockade to be inhumane and illegal," Staffan Graner, an activist who is sailing aboard Swedish trawler the Marianne of Gothenburg, told AFP.

"What we want to do... is to keep up international pressure that the blockade should end," he said.

The Marianne of Gothenburg, which set sail from Sicily on Friday, will join four other vessels carrying some 70 people en route for Gaza, according to a statement from the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine, an advocacy group supporting the effort.

Among those aboard will be former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, Spanish MEP Ana Maria Miranda Paza and Arab-Israeli lawmaker Basel Ghattas, organisers said.

Ghattas's decision to join the flotilla caused outrage in Israel. 

On Sunday, deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely said the flotilla was “the work of provocateurs whose aim is to blacken Israel’s face”, adding that the ministry had been working “through diplomatic channels night and day” to prevent it from reaching Israeli waters.

In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ghattas urged that he “command the Israeli security forces to stay away and allow the flotilla to arrive at its destination”.

“Any form of takeover to prevent this will only involve Israel in yet another difficult international crisis or scandal,” he warned.

‘Violence would be stupid’ 

Ghattas was referring to the killing of 10 Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara after Israeli commandos staged a botched pre-dawn raid on a six-ship flotilla seeking to break the Gaza blockade in May 2010.

Since then, several ships manned by pro-Palestinian activists have tried to reach the shores of Gaza, but they have all been repelled by the Israeli navy.

Activists in the Freedom Flotilla III are undeterred.

They say the international pressure Israel faces after the latest conflict Gaza, along with the uproar the 2010 raid caused, make it unlikely it will use violence this time.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) said last year that war crimes may have been committed in the 2010 raid — though the chief prosecutor decided that potential cases were not of “sufficient gravity” to justify further ICC action.

“One has to be realistic,” Graner said.

“We know that we’re sailing towards a blockade that is upheld essentially by two large military forces,” he said, referring also to Egypt’s navy.

Activists have accused Egypt of helping to enforce the blockade, although Cairo denies involvement.

“We think Israel lost a lot by the violence that they used in 2010. It would be extremely stupid of the Israelis... to use violence against us.”

‘End the siege’ 

Israel has in recent weeks been on the defensive over actions during the July-August war, where the majority of the 2,200 Gazans killed were civilians. Seventy-two Israelis were killed, 67 of them soldiers.

In anticipation of Monday’s UN report, Israel cleared itself of wrongdoing in a number of controversial incidents, including the bombing of UN schools being used as shelters for the displaced.

Israel says it was forced to target the schools’ vicinities because of actions by Hamas, which allegedly stored weaponry and fired rockets from UN institutions.

Some 100,000 Gazans remain homeless, with the reconstruction of tens of thousands of homes yet to begin. Israel’s ongoing blockade, now in its ninth year, has been blamed as well as a lack of international donor support.

Israel says more than 1.1 million tonnes of construction material have been allowed in since October 2014, along with food and other supplies.

Critics of the blockade have called for it to be fully lifted to allow reconstruction, warning that without it an ongoing humanitarian crisis could fuel further conflict.

Some “1.8 million Palestinians [are] living in disgraceful, prison-like conditions as a result of Israel’s military siege of both sea and land”, Ghattas said in his letter to Netanyahu.

“The third freedom flotilla carries humanitarian aid for the residents of the strip and aims to end the siege.

BEIRUT — Syrian Kurds and allied rebels advanced against the Daesh terror group on Tuesday, capturing a strategic town a day after seizing a base from the militants near their Raqqa bastion.

A spokesman for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and a Britain-based monitor said the anti-Daesh forces had taken Ain Issa on Tuesday, after capturing the nearby Brigade 93 base overnight.

"In the last few moments, Ain Issa has come under our full control, along with dozens of villages in the surrounding area," YPG spokesman Redur Khalil told AFP.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said Daesh forces had withdrawn from the town and YPG and rebel forces were now sweeping it to clear mines laid by the jihadists.

Ain Issa's fall comes after Daesh ceded control of the Brigade 93 base on Monday night and the border town of Tal Abyad more than a week ago.

Ain Issa and Brigade 93 are around 55 kilometres north of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Daesh's self-declared Islamic "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq.

They both lie on a main highway that runs between Kurdish-held territory in Aleppo province to the west and Hasakeh province to the east.

The same route links territory held by Daesh group in Aleppo and Hasakeh provinces.

"It's also a defence line for Raqqa," said Mutlu Civiroglu, a Kurdish affairs analyst.

"Considering that Raqqa is a sort of capital of the 'caliphate,' it creates a lot of pressure on IS [Daesh]."

Daesh 'pushed 

The YPG-rebel advance has been backed by air power from the US-led coalition fighting Daesh, with the Observatory saying at least 26 militants were killed in international strikes in and around Ain Issa on Monday.

"IS's defence lines have now been pushed back to the outskirts of Raqqa city because the area between Raqqa and Ain Issa is militarily weak and they have no fortifications in that area, which is mostly open plains," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The advance is the latest success for YPG forces and their rebel allies, helped by US-led air strikes.

On June 16, they captured Tal Abyad on the Turkish border, which had served as a key conduit for Daesh bringing in fighters and weapons and exporting black market oil.

Kurdish forces have been chipping away at Daesh territory in the northern Raqa province for months, after successfully repelling a fierce attack by the jihadists on the border town of Kobani in January.

The YPG has emerged as “arguably the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria”, analyst Sirwan Kajjo said after the capture of Tal Abyad.

“They are well-organised, disciplined and are big believers in their cause.”

Daesh destroys mausoleums 

Khalil declined to comment on where the anti-Daesh fighters would focus their attention next, but suggested an operation against Raqa was unlikely in the short-term.

“Raqa is much further away, and well-defended, it would require significant forces and weapons,” he said.

Civiroglu too said any offensive against Raqa would require lengthy planning and an upgrade to the weapons available to the YPG and its allies.

“I don’t see that Raqa is the next target. For now they want to consolidate their hold on Tal Abyad and the area around it,” he said.

Syria’s antiquities chief, meanwhile, confirmed Daesh had destroyed two ancient religious mausoleums in the old city of Palmyra.

Maamoun Abdulkarim said the extremists had blown up the tombs of Mohamed Bin Ali and Nizar Abu Bahaaeddine, two Muslim figures.

The militants consider tombstones and mausoleums to be a violation of their strict interpretation of Islamic law, and have regularly destroyed both in areas they control. 

ADEN — At least 39 people were killed and dozens wounded in 24 hours of clashes in the southern Yemeni cities of Aden and Dhaleh, officials said Tuesday.

In Aden, Yemen's second city, seven civilians died and 94 were wounded after Shiite Houthi rebels fired rockets on neighbourhoods controlled by troops loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the city's health chief Al Khader Laswar told AFP.

The fire destroyed several houses, according to Aden vice-governor Nayef Al Bakri.

Further north in Dhaleh, fierce clashes between Houthi fighters and loyalist troops killed 24 rebels and eight in the pro-Hadi camp, including a local commander, a local official said.

Both camps used heavy weapons after the rebels attacked pro-government positions in the northern and eastern areas of the city, the official said, adding that there were dozens of wounded on either side.

Fighting has dragged on for several months in Aden, where Iran-backed Shiite rebels have battled pro-Hadi loyalists since the president fled to Riyadh in March.

A Saudi-led coalition has been pounding rebel positions in Yemen since March 26, following a Houthi advance from their northern stronghold into the capital Sanaa, and a subsequent push south towards Aden

More than 2,600 people have been killed in Yemen since March, according to UN figures, and almost 80 per cent of the population — 20 million people — are in need of urgent humanitarian aid.

UN-brokered peace talks between the rebels and government officials ended in Geneva last week without agreement.

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories — Egypt opened the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip Tuesday, a Palestinian official said, allowing the delivery of cement supplies into the badly destroyed territory.

The move, which also allowed Palestinians to leave and enter Gaza, came almost a year after the outbreak of a bloody and destructive 50-day war between Israel and Hamas, with tens of thousands of homes still in ruins.

Egyptian authorities have now opened the crossing three times during the last month, making officials in Gaza hopeful that Cairo might ease restrictions on movement to and from the coastal enclave.

Until last year, Palestinians were able to leave via Rafah, but since October the frontier has been closed as Cairo struggles with a growing insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, for which it partly blames Islamist militants in Gaza.

Restrictions across the border have also been tight since the 2013 overthrow in Cairo of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood organisation is an ally of Hamas.

"Rafah will be open for three days... to allow sick people, students studying abroad and those with foreign residency permits" to come or go, Maher Abu Sabha, director of border crossings in Gaza, told AFP.

Cairo was also allowing an "important quantity" of cement of enter the strip, he said.

"This is a sign of a warming of relations with Egypt," he added.

Earlier this month, Egyptian authorities allowed 3,520 tonnes of construction material into Gaza, Egyptian sources told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The material is needed to repair a large amount of damage caused during the July-August war which killed 2,200 Palestinians, 73 on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers, and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, leaving 100,000 people homeless.

Repairs have been made to a number of partially damaged homes, the UN says, but those totally destroyed have yet to be rebuilt.

Israel's ongoing blockade, now in its ninth year, has been blamed as well as a lack of international donor support.

Israel says more than 1.1 million tonnes of construction material have been allowed in since October 2014 through Kerem Shalom, the goods crossing it controls.

Critics of the blockade have called for it to be fully lifted to allow reconstruction, warning that an ongoing humanitarian crisis could fuel further conflict.