As Syria’s earthquake rescue efforts near the one week mark, an unsettling silence blankets the area as a search dog sniffs around a flattened home in the coastal town of Jableh.

The UN yesterday denounced a failure to get desperately needed aid to war-torn regions of Syria, while warning that the death toll of nearly 30,000 from an earthquake that also devastated Turkey could at least double.

Israeli troops yesterday killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy during a raid on a flashpoint town in the occupied West Bank that led to clashes with gunmen, medical officials and witnesses said.

At least 11 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a central Syria attack blamed on the Islamic State group, a war monitor said yesterday.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will head to China within days for a three-day visit aimed at strengthening economic cooperation, state media reported yesterday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday promised a stronger Israeli response in dealing with a spate of Palestinian attacks in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, as pressure swelled within his right-wing government to employ more severe tactics.

The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria is likely to “more than double”, said the UN yesterday, five days after the natural disaster struck the region, leaving more than 25,000 dead.

Tens of thousands of Iranians yesterday rallied in Tehran and other major cities to mark the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, as their president said months-long protests had been defeated.

A Jewish settler fatally shot a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank yesterday, Palestinian officials said.

Almost 26 million people have been affected by the deadly earthquake that ravaged Turkey and Syria this week, the WHO said yesterday, warning that dozens of hospitals had been damaged.

Two people including a child were killed and several injured when a driver rammed his car into a group of people at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem yesterday, Israeli emergency services said.

Rescuers yesterday pulled people, including children, alive from the rubble of the Turkey-Syria earthquake as the toll neared 24,000 and bitter cold compounded the suffering of the homeless.

"The suspect was neutralised on the spot" in Ramot, a Jewish settlement in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the Israeli police said, describing it as a "terror" attack.

Hopes of finding more survivors faded yesterday after the earthquake that killed over 20,000 people in Turkey and Syria, as the first UN aid reached Syrian rebel-held zones.

A 46-member rescue team left Dhaka last night for Turkey to join the search and rescue operation in the aftermath of Monday’s earthquake.

Time was running out for survivors buried in the rubble of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, as search efforts near the crucial 72-hour mark, a rescue response expert said yesterday.

A photograph of a father holding the hand of his teenage daughter who died trapped under the rubble of a flattened building in the Turkish region of Kahramanmaras conveys the scale of the suffering provoked by Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake and its aftershocks.

Rescuers were still pulling survivors yesterday from the rubble of the earthquake that killed over 12,000 people in Turkey and Syria, even as rescue chances dwindled and victims clamoured for help.

Rescuers in Turkey and Syria battled frigid cold yesterday in a race against time to find survivors under buildings flattened by an earthquake that killed more than 7,200 people.

Bangladesh is sending a joint support team led by the Armed Forces Division to Turkey to conduct search and rescue operations in the aftermath of Monday’s horrific earthquake.