In post-Assad Syria, stand-up comedians are re-emerging to challenge taboos, mocking the former president and his regime and even testing the waters with Damascus' new rulers.

The Kremlin on Thursday cautioned against "hypotheses" over the crash of an Azerbaijani plane which had been due to land in Russia as experts pointed to possible evidence of a missile explosion.

The chief pediatric doctor at a southern Gaza hospital told AFP that three babies had died of "severe temperature drop" this week, as the war-ravaged Palestinian territory grapples with winter cold.

About 18,000 Syrians have crossed into their country from Jordan since the government of Bashar al-Assad was toppled earlier this month, Jordanian authorities said on Thursday.

Syria's new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.

Assad fled Syria after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell on December 8, ending his clan's five-decade rule.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Thursday warned that “any actions that risk the fragile cessation of hostilities” in south Lebanon “must cease.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Wednesday an "inhumane" attack from Russia, which launched over 170 missiles and drones, knocking out power in several regions on Christmas Day and killing an energy worker.

A Syria war monitor said 17 people were killed Wednesday in clashes in Tartus province after security forces sought to arrest an officer under deposed leader Bashar al-Assad who was linked to a notorious prison.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "14 members of the General Security force" of Syria's new authorities were killed, along with "three armed men" in Khirbet al-Maaza, raising an earlier toll of nine dead.

Angry protests broke out Wednesday in several areas of Syria after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country's north, a war monitor and witnesses said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said large demonstrations took place in the coastal cities of Tartus and Latakia, provinces that are the heartland of the Alawite minority which deposed ruler Bashar al-Assad hails from.

Israeli warplanes targeted a two-story house at dawn Wednesday in the plain of the Baalbek district town of Taraya, causing no casualties, the National News Agency and media reports said.