Recognising the State of Palestine "is justice for the Palestinian people (and) the best guarantee of security for Israel," Spain's foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said Sunday alongside Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Mustafa.
Welcoming Spain's move, with Norway and Ireland, to recognise the Palestinian state on Tuesday, Mustafa said, "We want to have every country in Europe to do the same."
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority said Israeli strikes on a centre for displaced people killed dozens near the southern city of Rafah on Sunday, while the Israeli army said it had targeted Hamas militants.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement that the strikes "claimed the lives of 35 martyrs and left dozens injured, most of them children and women".
The Hamas-run government media office in Gaza earlier said the attack hit a centre run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees near Rafah, branding it a "horrific massacre".
In a Beirut car park, migrant workers cheer as their teams face off in a cricket tournament, a moment of respite in crisis-hit Lebanon, where working conditions are often tough.
"Sunday we are so happy... We eat together, we laugh together," said cricketer Pradeepa Silva, a 42-year-old Sri Lankan, as she and her teammates prepared coconut rice and other traditional food nearby to share.
"Work is very tiring" and workers are stressed and worried, said Silva, who is employed as a housemaid six days a week and pays for her daughter's university studies back home.
Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand urgent government action to bring home hostages held in Gaza, after the bodies of several were retrieved.
Protesters observed a minute's silence in Tel Aviv's Hostages Square in honour of the captives whose bodies were recovered by Israeli troops this month, an AFP correspondent reported.
The army said on Friday that troops had retrieved the bodies of three hostages in an overnight operation in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
Hernan Crespo's Al Ain steamrollered 10-man Yokohama F-Marinos 5-1 in the Asian Champions League final return leg to lift the trophy for the second time in their history on Saturday.
The hosts trailed 2-1 from the away fixture but two goals from Soufiane Rahimi, a Kaku penalty and Kodjo Laba's late double ensured a 6-3 aggregate victory after Yokohama goalkeeper William Popp saw red just before half-time.
Al Ain, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates' most successful club, won the inaugural Champions League final in 2003 and were runners-up in 2005 and 2016.
Iranian authorities have jailed a father who campaigned unsuccessfully for clemency for his 22-year-old son after he was sentenced to death in connection with 2022 protests, his lawyer said Saturday.
Mashallah Karami was sentenced to six years in prison by a Revolutionary Court in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj on charges of illegally organising gatherings and collecting donations, his lawyer Ali Sharifzadeh Ardakani said on X, adding that the verdict had "flaws" and would be appealed.
A hard-hitting Iranian film about the country's women-led protests that has wowed Cannes was kept so secret that even its star didn't know who was making it for several months, she told the festival on Saturday.
"The Seed of the Sacred Fig" has blown away critics at the Cannes Film Festival with its powerful depiction of a family torn apart by the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests that erupted in Iran in 2022.
It is considered a frontrunner for an award at the closing ceremony later on Saturday.
Italy said Saturday it would resume funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), as Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa made a visit to Rome.
"Italy has decided to resume financing specific projects intended for assistance to Palestinian refugees but only after rigorous controls that guarantee that not even a penny risks ending up supporting terrorism," Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded Rafah, after the government dismissed an order by the top UN court to halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city.
At the same time, questions remained over the resumption of truce talks despite renewed international efforts aimed at securing a prisoner-hostage exchange and ceasefire in the war sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel.
An Israeli official said Saturday the government had an "intention" to restart stalled negotiations over the coming days.
Only a dozen pilgrims turned up Friday at this year's Jewish pilgrimage on Tunisia's island of Djerba amid heightened security concerns after a deadly attack last year and as the Israel-Hamas war rages in Gaza.
The pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue, Africa's oldest, usually draws thousands of pilgrims from Europe, Israel and beyond, attracting international and local tourists as well.
But on the first day of the pilgrimage event this year, only about a dozen worshippers were present -- almost none of them foreigners -- with a heavy police and National Guard presence.
