The US called on Iran to help move warring parties in Yemen to peace-talks for a political settlement a US official confirmed on Wednesday.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mahammad Javad Zarif, met with his US counterpart on Monday to discuss Iranian help to get Houthi militants in Yemen to the negotiation table, reports Reuters.

A US State Department official, when asked if Secretary of State John Kerry called on Iran to bring Houthi militants to peace talks, the official told reporters, “Yes.”

The Israeli army struck seven UN schools, where Palestinians were sheltering from attacks, killing at least 44, a UN inquiry has found.

According to the UN, at least 2,189 Palestinians died during the 50 day conflict, of which at least 1,486 were civilians.

An independent board of inquiry looked into incidents at ten schools run by the UN, finding that one girls' school was hit by 88 rounds of mortar fire with other schools hit by missiles and anti-tank projectiles.

At another girls' school, the inquiry found, "no prior warning had been given by the government of Israel of the firing of 155mm high explosive projectiles on, or in the surrounding area of the school".

Dozens of people have been killed in a series of car bombs across Iraq on Sunday and Monday, according to officials.

A car packed with explosives killed 7 soldiers at an army checkpoint near the town of al-Nukhaib, with military officials blaming Islamic State for the attack. An army officer told Reuters, “Deash terrorists used a suicide car bomb attack to distract our soldiers and then they clashed with soldiers, but we managed to repel the attack."

The Nigerian army claimed to have rescued as many as 200 girls and 93 women during an offensive against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

“Troops have this afternoon captured & destroyed three camps of terrorists inside the Sambisa forest & rescued 200 girls & 93 women,” said defence spokesman Chris Olukolade, with the Nigerian army also claiming to have destroyed 3 camps in the Boko Haram stronghold.

Omar al-Bashir has been re-elected as the president of Sudan, with 94% of the vote going to the suspected war criminal, according to the official election results.

The president, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court and is accused of committing genocide in Darfur, has been in power for 25 years, and can now serve for another 5.

Turnout was at 30-35% and the main opposition parties boycotted the election, according to observers from the African Union.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), a group promoting press freedom, condemned the killings of 5 Libyan journalists by Islamic State militants, in a statement made on Monday.

Islamic State militants killed five journalists working for a Libyan TV station in the eastern regions of the country, a Libyan army commander told press.

The army district commander in eastern Libya, Faraj al-Barassi, speaking to Reuters, said that militants loyal to the Islamic State had slit the throats of 5 journalists.

A coalition of Islamist opposition militants have, which includes the Al Nusra Front, has captured a key Syrian town in the north of the country.

The opposition alliance, which also includes the Ahrar al-Sham movement and Jund al-Aqsa, united last month in an effort to overwhelm Syrian government forces and take the town of Jisr al-Shughour. The coalition, which does not include the Islamic State (IS), captured the town of Idlib last month.

The Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen rejected the former president’s calls for peacetalks in a statement made on Sunday.

Speaking at a news conference in London, Mr Yaseen said,