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The Israeli government on Thursday cut off Mideast peace talks and threatened to impose new sanctions against the Palestinians in response to a unity agreement between rival Palestinian factions, pushing an embattled U.S. peace initiative to the brink of collapse.

Israel's Security Cabinet made the decision during a marathon emergency meeting convened to discuss the new Palestinian deal. The rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah announced a reconciliation plan meant to end a seven-year rift on Wednesday.

An Afghan security guard shot and killed three Americans at a hospital in Kabul on Thursday. Officials said the three killed were doctors, including a visiting father and son.

Another doctor and a U.S. nurse were wounded in the attack.

District Police Chief Hafiz Khan said a guard suddenly turned his weapon on the staff he was supposed to be protecting at Cure International Hospital and started shooting.

"Five doctors had entered the compound of the hospital and were walking toward the building when the guard opened fire on them," said Kanishka Bektash Torkystani, a Ministry of Health spokesman. "Three foreign doctors were killed."

The Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed on Wednesday to a unity pact, both sides announced in a joint news conference.

The move, coming after a long line of failed efforts to reconcile after seven years of internal bickering, envisions a unity government within five weeks and national elections six months later.

Airstrikes in southern Yemen killed about 30 suspected al-Qaida members on Sunday, local tribal sources said, in the second operation of its kind within two days.

On Saturday an air strike killed 10 al-Qaida militants and three civilians in central Yemen, a country that neighbours top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and is home to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the group's most lethal wings.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has urged equal opportunities and rights for men and women, and condemned sexual discrimination.

In a speech marking Women's Day, Mr Rouhani criticised "those who consider women's presence society as a threat" and said Iran still had "a long way to go" to ensure gender equality.

Mr Rouhani, a religious moderate, was elected to office in June 2013.

Iran has condemned a US decision to seize a Manhattan skyscraper belonging to a non-profit organisation with alleged links to the Tehran government.

The 36-storey building is owned chiefly by the Alavi Foundation, a Persian and Islamic cultural centre. Iran said its seizure was illegal and violated religious freedom.

On Thursday the US justice department agreed to distribute proceeds from the sale of the building to victims of attacks by Iran-backed militants.