Dubai's major international airport diverted scores of incoming flights on Tuesday as heavy rains lashed the United Arab Emirates, causing widespread flooding around the desert country.

The world's busiest air hub for international passengers confirmed a halt to arrivals at 7:26 pm (1526 GMT) before announcing a "gradual resumption" more than two hours later.

Earlier the airport, which had been expecting more than 100 flight arrivals on Tuesday evening, took the equally unusual step of briefly halting its operations in the chaos caused by the storm.

Hundreds of Palestinians queued for bread at a reopened bakery in Gaza City, after fresh supplies arrived in a heavily blockaded area that has suffered months of deprivation.

They waited for hours in the streets of Gaza's biggest city this week as the bakery turned out bags of subsidised bread after the World Food Programme was able to resupply it.

Children stood patiently in line alongside young men and elderly people.

The recent oil price spike fueled by rising Middle East tensions has the potential to derail the IMF's "relatively good" outlook for the world economy, its chief economist told AFP.

"We are projecting a global economy that is quite resilient for 2024," Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said in an interview ahead of the publication of the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook (WEO) report on Tuesday.

When Iran attacked Israel at the weekend, Jordan intercepted multiple missiles and drones, but King Abdullah II has stressed his country must not become "the theatre of a regional war".

If the Gaza war raging since October 7 has created tough challenges for Jordan, it now faces the additional threat of being literally stuck in the middle of a widening Israel-Iran conflict.

Jordan, about half of whose population is of Palestinian origin, is also a close US ally and signed a peace treaty with neighbouring Israel 30 years ago.

The United States said Tuesday it would soon impose new sanctions on Iran's missile and drone program after its weekend attack on Israel, and that it expects its allies and partners to follow with parallel measures.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan's announcement came after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen indicated punitive measures were in the works, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said his office was working on it.

Torrential rain flooded roads, homes and malls and briefly halted operations at Dubai's airport as storms lashed the Gulf on Tuesday, after leaving at least 18 dead in Oman.

Dubai, the Middle East's financial centre, was paralysed by the heavy storms that caused widespread flooding around the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Flagship shopping centres Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates both suffered flooding and water was ankle-deep at at least one Dubai Metro station.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday it had found unexploded 1,000-pound bombs inside schools after Israel pulled troops out of southern Gaza's main city Khan Yunis.

The Israeli army has carried out relentless air strikes and bombardments in Gaza since Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.

UN agencies led an "assessment mission" in Khan Yunis after Israeli forces withdrew from the embattled city last week, UNRWA said.

Israel and Iran traded threats after Tehran's first-ever direct attack on its arch-foe sharply heightened tensions in a region already on edge after six months of war in Gaza.

The war in the besieged territory and its soaring civilian toll have revived the push for a two-state solution, with the UN Security Council preparing to vote Thursday on full United Nations membership for a Palestinian state, according to diplomatic sources.

Israel is preventing UN investigators from speaking to witnesses and victims of the October 7 Hamas attack, former UN rights chief Navi Pillay, who is chairing a three-person probe, said Tuesday.

The unprecedented Commission of Inquiry was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The looming threat of a war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is reviving painful memories for former Lebanese militiamen and their families who fled to Israel, their erstwhile ally, more than 20 years ago.

The South Lebanon Army was a mostly Christian militia recruited by Israel when it occupied south Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.