The UN cultural agency UNESCO said Thursday it would consider enhanced protection of ancient sites in Lebanon after a wave of near-misses in strikes by Israel triggered an appeal by Lebanese lawmakers.

Several Israeli strikes in recent weeks on the eastern city of Baalbek and the southern city of Tyre -- both strongholds of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah -- have hit close to ancient Roman ruins designated by UNESCO as World Heritage sites.

Ireland intends to join South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice before the end of the year, its foreign minister said on Thursday.

Micheal Martin's comments came as the Irish parliament passed a non-binding motion agreeing that "genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza".

South Africa in December brought a case before the ICJ, arguing that the war in Gaza breached the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, an accusation Israel has strongly denied.

After Donald Trump's re-election, Iran has projected indifference, officially stating it expects no fundamental shift in US policy, especially on sanctions or the Middle East's wars.

However, Trump is set to return to the White House in January -- after defeating US Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday's election -- at a delicate time for Tehran whose allies in the region have suffered severe blows in conflicts with Israel.

Israeli police entered a French-owned church compound in Jerusalem on Thursday, briefly detaining two gendarmes and prompting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot to abandon a scheduled visit, an AFP journalist reported.

Barrot said the standoff at the Eleona church compound in annexed east Jerusalem was "unacceptable", with the foreign ministry in Paris later saying Israel's ambassador would be summoned over the incident.

More than 100 Lebanese lawmakers appealed to the United Nations on Thursday to ensure the preservation of heritage sites in areas heavily bombed by Israel during its war with Hezbollah.

The appeal to the head of the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, followed Israeli strikes near ancient ruins in the southern city of Tyre and the eastern city of Baalbek in recent weeks.

"During the devastating war on Lebanon, Israel has caused grave human rights violations and atrocities," the lawmakers said more than a month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.

The Lebanese army said an Israeli strike on a vehicle near a checkpoint in the southern city of Sidon on Thursday killed three people and wounded troops and UN peacekeepers.

"The Israeli enemy targeted a car while it was passing through the Awali checkpoint," the main northern entrance to Sidon, the army said.

With the exception of a few limited strikes, Sidon, a Sunni Muslim-majority city, has been relatively spared the deadly air raids targeting south Lebanon in Israel's war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani inaugurated five docks on Thursday at a major new port the country is building on its narrow Gulf coast.

Grand Faw Port on Al-Faw Peninsula is intended to provide a new freight link between Asia and Europe via upgraded rail and road infrastructure through Iraq and Turkey.

Dubbed the Iraq Development Road, the mega project is expected to cost some $17 billion.

At least five UN peacekeepers were wounded in an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon on Thursday, the United Nations said, in a raid that also killed three civilians.

Israel, which has not commented on the incident in Lebanon's Sidon city, launched a barrage of strikes after Hezbollah said it carried out a missile attack targeting a military base near Israel's main international airport on Wednesday.

The UN said Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations children's agency UNICEF launched a second round of vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after Israeli bombing halted an earlier attempt to do so.

An Iranian student who stripped to her underwear in Tehran to protest alleged harassment over her clothing has been transferred to a centre of "specialised care", the Iranian Embassy in Paris said Wednesday.

"The student in question suffers from psychological fragility and was transferred by an ambulance of the emergency social services to a specialised care centre," it said, without giving further details about the centre.

Concern has grown over the whereabouts and welfare of the young woman, with activists worried authorities could confine her in a psychiatric institution.