The move by Spain, Ireland and Norway to recognise the State of Palestine will give a major boost to the cause, the Palestinian Authority's health minister said Wednesday, urging other European countries to follow suit.

Maged Abu Ramadan thanked the three countries, their people and their governments for their "courageous decision", saying it would have a "great political, positive input on the case of Palestine, wherever it will be discussed".

Brazil has recalled its ambassador to Israel, a diplomatic source told AFP Wednesday, ratcheting up tensions between the two countries over Israel's war in Gaza.

The nearly eight-month-old conflict has soured Israel's diplomatic ties with several nations, including Brazil, whose President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in February accused the country's government of genocide.

Israel reacted furiously, declaring the Brazilian leader persona non grata.

Kuwait said Wednesday its refining capacity had reached a record 1.8 million barrels per day as it inaugurated one of the region's biggest refineries which started operating at full capacity in recent months.

Made up of three component units, the huge Al-Zour refinery is one of the biggest in the Middle East. It was officially inaugurated on Wednesday, months after its output reached full capacity of 615,000 bpd.

"We have succeeded in reaching an unprecedented refining capacity of 1.83 million bpd both domestically and abroad," Oil Minister Emad Mohammed al-Atiqi said.

President Xi Jinping told his Egyptian counterpart on Wednesday that China was "deeply pained" by the "extremely severe" situation in Gaza, as Beijing hosts Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and several other Arab leaders.

The talks between Xi, Sisi and other Arab dignitaries in China this week are aimed at building consensus between Beijing and the Arab nations, as well as presenting a "common voice" on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

When Bassem Eido steps outside his modest village house in Iraq's Sinjar district, he is reminded of the horrors that befell the majority-Yazidi region during the Islamic State group's onslaught a decade ago.

The area near the Syrian border still bears the scars of the fighting that raged there in 2014 -- bullet-riddled family homes with pancaked roofs and warning signs of the lethal threat of landmines and war munitions.

Israel's army said Wednesday it took control of a vital Gaza-Egypt corridor it suspects aided weapons smuggling as the ground offensive against Hamas in the border city of Rafah intensified.

A military spokesman said about 20 tunnels were found in the area of the corridor, a claim rejected by Egypt which accused Israel of using allegations of tunnels under the border as cover for its Rafah offensive.

Former US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has been photographed writing "Finish Them" on an Israeli shell as she toured sites near the northern border with Lebanon.

The photograph was posted on X on Tuesday by Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli parliament and former ambassador to the United Nations, who was accompanying Haley on her visit.

"'Finish Them'. This is what my friend the former ambassador Nikki Haley wrote," Danon said in his post that showed a kneeling Haley writing on a shell with a purple marker pen.

US President Joe Biden has no plans to change his Israel policy following a deadly weekend strike on Gaza's Rafah -- but is not turning a "blind eye" to the plight of Palestinian civilians, the White House said Tuesday.

Gazan health authorities said 45 people were killed as a blaze tore through a camp for displaced people following the Sunday strike by Israel.

But Washington does not believe that Israel's actions in Rafah amount to a full-scale operation that would breach Biden's "red lines," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Israel's military offensive in Rafah is already taking a dire health toll in southern Gaza, and if it continues, "substantial" increases in deaths can be expected, a top WHO official warned Tuesday.

Since Israel launched its long-threatened Rafah incursion in early May, access to healthcare in Gaza's southernmost city has been devastated, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's representative in the Palestinian territories.

Joe Biden's red lines over Israel's assault on Rafah have kept shifting, but the US president faces growing pressure to take a firmer stance after a deadly strike in the Gazan city.

Despite global outrage over the attack in which 45 people were killed, the White House insisted on Tuesday that it did not believe Israel had launched the major operation that Biden has warned against.

John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesman, said that Biden had been consistent and was not "moving the stick" on what defined an all-out military offensive by key ally Israel.