Hundreds of mourners gathered at a cemetery in southern Israel on Wednesday to bid a final farewell to Shiri Bibas and her two sons, who were killed in Gaza captivity and had become symbols in Israel of the hostages' ordeal.

Orange balloons symbolising the children's red hair fluttered in the breeze from a fence near the cemetery, which is close to kibbutz Nir Oz, from where the Bibas family were seized by Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023.

Signs reading "sorry" and "the broken heart with the Bibas family" hung from a nearby fence.

An Australian couple have criticised Qatar Airways after a blanket-draped corpse was seated next to them during a long-haul flight.

Mitchell Ring said a passenger died part-way through the 14-hour flight from Melbourne to Doha last week.

"They tried to wheel her up towards business class, but she was quite a large lady and they couldn't get her through the aisle," he told Australian network Nine News this week.

"They looked a bit frustrated, then they just looked at me and saw seats were available beside me."

Israel freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners on Thursday, shortly after saying Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over coffins believed to contain the bodies of four hostages.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel had received the coffins of "four fallen hostages", and a process to formally identify them had started. A kibbutz later confirmed two of them were members of its community.

In Gaza and the occupied West Bank, AFP journalists saw hundreds of Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel arrive on buses accompanied by Red Cross vehicles.

A Tunisian court sentenced eight defendants to death on Tuesday over the 2013 assassination of leftist opposition figure Mohamed Brahmi, according to local reports.

Charges included "attempting to change the state's nature" and "inciting armed conflict", local media reported.

Three of the defendants also received additional death sentences for "deliberate participation in premeditated murder", according to the reports.

A ninth, who is on the run, was sentenced to five years in prison for "failing to report terrorist crimes to the authorities", said the reports.

With the rev of an engine and a last tremendous pull, Raghdan Salem Zodeh's SUV was freed from the sand and rising tides near a resort in the desert state of Qatar.

Zodeh, 47, a Syrian living in the Gulf emirate, had become stuck near the on-rushing tide, his wheels spinning in sea-sodden sand, before volunteers from the Aoun Qatar rescue team came to wrench him out with towing cables.

"The guys here are all chivalrous, they are all helpful," Zodeh told AFP, after waiting just 10 minutes to be rescued.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday dismissed the possibility of direct negotiations with the United States on his country's nuclear programme.

His remarks came a day after Washington announced fresh sanctions on Tehran targeting more than 30 vessels and people, including the head of the national oil company, accused of involvement in brokering the sale and shipment of Iranian oil.

The sanctions were the latest to be imposed since US President Donald Trump reinstated his "maximum pressure" policy towards Iran, reprising his approach during his first term.

The mother of a Egyptian-British activist jailed in Cairo has been hospitalised as her hunger strike approached 150 days, her family said Tuesday.

Laila Soueif, 68, has lived on only coffee, tea and rehydration sachets since September 29, 2024, the date that marked five years in detention for her son Alaa Abdel Fattah.

She was taken to a London hospital overnight Monday to Tuesday, the 149th day of her protest, due to "dangerously new lows" in her blood sugar levels, blood pressure and sodium levels, her campaign said in a statement.

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Tuesday that six newborn babies have died in a cold snap which has gripped the war-ravaged Palestinian territory over the past week.

"As a result of a severe cold wave and the lack of heating, we have recorded the deaths of six newborns during the past week up until today," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Meteorologists say temperatures have fallen to zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days as a cold front has gripped the eastern Mediterranean.

A national dialogue conference held Tuesday in Damascus set out a path for the new Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad but did not receive support from Kurdish leaders, who were not invited.

Among the principles agreed to was a state monopoly on arms, which came with Syria's Kurds at odds with the new government over the future of their armed units.

Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in a speech to attendees, said the country was at a "new historic phase" after more than a decade of civil war.

In the marbled halls of a luxury hotel, leading experts are discussing a new approach to an age-old problem: how to make it rain in the UAE, the wealthy Gulf state that lies in one of the world's biggest deserts.

Decades of work and millions of dollars have been ploughed into easing endless drought in the oil-rich UAE, whose mainly expatriate population is soaring undeterred by a dry, hostile climate and hairdryer summer heat.

Despite the United Arab Emirates' best efforts, rainfall remains rare.