The global economy is faring better than expected, propped up by a resilient United States, the IMF chief said Wednesday, ahead of next week's gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington.

The world economy is doing "better than feared, but worse than we need," International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters in Washington, according to prepared remarks, adding the Fund now expects global growth to slow "only slightly this year and next."

The health of Hannibal Gadhafi, son of longtime Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, is alarming and he should be released after nearly a decade of pre-trial detention in Lebanon, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Lebanese authorities arrested Gadhafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding information about the disappearance of revered Lebanese Shiite cleric Imam Moussa Sadr nearly four decades earlier.

Ukraine and Russia launched attacks on each other's territory early on Wednesday, leaving at least five people dead, authorities on the two sides said.

Turkey's foreign ministry on Wednesday lashed out at an "act of piracy" after Israeli forces intercepted several more boats heading for Gaza, saying several Turkish lawmakers were on board.

"The intervention in international waters against the Freedom Flotilla... is an act of piracy," it said in a statement, describing it as "an attack on civil activists, including Turkish citizens and members of parliament".

Saudi Arabia condemned on Wednesday a visit by Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir to the Al-Aqsa compound, a disputed area in occupied east Jerusalem home to Islam's third-holiest site that is also Judaism's holiest place.

Riyadh voiced its "condemnation of the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Israeli officials and settlers under the protection of the occupation forces, reiterating its strongest condemnation of the continued attacks on the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The UK’s public prosecution body Tuesday said it would appeal a court’s decision to drop a charge of supporting "terrorism" brought against a Northern Irish singer from rap group Kneecap.

"We are appealing the decision to dismiss this case as we believe there is an important point of law which needs to be clarified," a Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said, referring to the case against Liam O’Hanna, also known by his stage name Mo Chara.

A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that negotiations held in Egypt for an end to the war in Gaza were advancing in a "spirit of optimism".

"The mediators are making great efforts to remove any obstacles to the implementation of the ceasefire, and a spirit of optimism prevails among all parties," Taher al-Nunu told AFP from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, where indirect talks began on Monday between Israel and Hamas.

Lebanon Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday urged Hezbollah to surrender its weapons to the state "as soon as possible," warning the Iran-backed group it has run out of options.

"Hezbollah has no choice but to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese state... because the state took this decision," Geagea told AFP in an interview from his residence in Maarab.

Spanish emergency services were scrambling to find four people who went missing after a building under construction in Madrid's touristic city center collapsed on Tuesday, injuring around 10, authorities said.

The toll "at the moment is estimated to be around 10, mostly minor, injuries", said Francisco Martin Aguirre, the central government's top representative in the Madrid region, adding that "there are four people missing".

Hamas said Tuesday it was working to overcome "all obstacles" as Palestinian militant leaders held indirect talks with Israel aimed at ending the two-year Gaza war.

"The delegation of the movement participating in the current negotiations in Egypt seeks to surmount all obstacles to achieving an agreement that fulfils the aspirations of our people in Gaza," senior Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said in a televised speech.