Only Palestinians and Israelis can decide whether to resume talks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Wednesday as he met Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for the first time since the peace process collapsed.

The top U.S. diplomat told Abbas during almost two hours of talks in London that the fate of the peace process lies in the hands of the deeply-divided parties.

The U.S. government officially designated two officials of rival jihadist groups in Syria as "global terrorists" Wednesday, warning other Syrian rebel groups to stay away from both men.

The U.S. Treasury added Saudi-born Abd Al-Rahman Muhammad Zafir Al-Dubaysi al-Juhni and Iraq native Abd Al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Syrian rebels who evacuated Homs after a two-year siege and daily bombing are rediscovering the simple joy of eating well and resting. But many feel far from home and dream of return.

"In the last months of the siege, all we had left to eat were the leaves off the trees," says Abul Joud, an activist and native of Homs' Old City.

A young Arab Israeli who joined rebel forces in Syria and underwent military training with jihadist fighters law went on trial Wednesday charged with violating Israeli law, legal and security officials said.

Ahmad Shurbaji, 23, from Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel, along with three other Arab Israelis on January 16 left for Turkey, from where they crossed into Syria, the prosecution said.

Nearly 850 prisoners have died in Syrian regime jails this year, many executed summarily or tortured to death, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

"From the beginning of the year until May 13, 847 prisoners, including 15 below the age of 18 and six women, have died in security service prisons and army bases," the Britain-based monitoring group said.

The war in Syria is driving one family from their home every minute, pushing the number of people internally displaced by conflict to a new global high, the U.N.'s former aid chief said Wednesday.

A total of 8.2 million people were forced to flee their homes by violence last year, nearly half of them in Syria, Jan Egeland told reporters.

Syria welcomed Wednesday the resignation of U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, as hopes for a resumption of peace talks dimmed ahead of a controversial election expected to return President Bashar Assad to office.

Damascus accused Brahimi, who announced on Tuesday that he will step down on May 31, of bias and interference in its internal affairs after he criticized the planned election as a blow to peace efforts.

President Barack Obama met Syrian opposition leader Ahmad Jarba Tuesday in a show of support for moderate, embattled foes of President Bashar Assad.

Both sides said the meeting was productive and marked an important step in the evolving relationship between the United States and the opposition.

The Syrian regime is believed to have used chemical weapons including chlorine in 14 attacks since late 2013, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday.

Fabius, who is on an official visit to Washington, also voiced France's regrets that U.S. President Barack Obama had failed to carry out threatened U.S. strikes on the Syrian regime as punishment for a sarin gas attack near Damascus in August in which hundreds died.

Lakhdar Brahimi has resigned as the U.N. and Arab League mediator for Syria on Tuesday after international efforts to find a political solution to the three-year-old civil war failed.

"I thought we'd be able to deliver but because of divisions we have not been able to make any progress in the course of three years," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.