A group of French diplomats have penned a highly unusual joint memorandum deploring what they allege is a pro-Israeli bias from President Emmanuel Macron, adding to pressure on the president after sometimes controversial statements over the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

French daily newspaper Le Figaro said on Monday that around a dozen French ambassadors accredited to the Middle East and North Africa countries signed the confidential note, calling it an "unprecedented gesture in the recent history of French diplomacy in the Arab world."

Flying taxis have been a sci-fi fixture for decades, but one operator says they are finally close to reality, first in the United States and then the United Arab Emirates and India.

"What we used to think of as science fiction is now science fact," Billy Nolen, Archer Aviation's chief safety officer, told AFP at the Dubai Airshow on Wednesday.

"This is happening, it is real, and you will see this in the market in 2025."

Israeli police said Wednesday they had demolished the home of a Palestinian who killed seven Israelis and a Ukrainian near a synagogue in a settlement in annexed east Jerusalem.

Khayri Alqam was shot dead in the January 27 attack and his family later received a demolition order for their apartment, under a long-standing policy to punish the families of Palestinians who kill Israelis.

At the time, the United Nations said the shooting in Neve Yaakov was the deadliest attack on Israelis since 2008.

France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accused of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes over chemical attacks in 2013, plaintiffs in the case said Wednesday.

In one of the more than decade-long conflict's many horrors, sarin gas attacks saw more than 1,400 people suffocate to death near Damascus in August 2013.

Dubai is forging ahead with plans to replace the world's busiest airport with an even bigger one as passenger traffic recovers to outstrip pre-pandemic levels, a top official told AFP on Wednesday.

Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said designs were being drawn up for Al Maktoum International Airport, which will be built on the city's outskirts and should replace Dubai International in the 2030s.

The Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attacks has disabled about two thirds of the 36 hospitals in the besieged Palestinian territory, according to UN officials.

Israeli forces on Wednesday raided the biggest medical complex, Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital, one of a number of facilities that have been caught up in the worst of the fighting.

Global concern has flared over the war and the thousands of war-wounded and displaced civilians inside the hospital, which has been deprived of electricity, generator fuel and essential medical supplies.

Israeli soldiers withdrew from Gaza's main hospital Wednesday after raiding and combing through the facility in their war against Hamas, as the UN Security Council called for "urgent humanitarian pauses".

Both Israel and its top ally the United States said the Palestinian militants have a command centre below the Al-Shifa complex, a charge denied by Hamas and directors at the hospital, which has become a focal point in the 40-day-old war.

Hours after Israeli troops launched a night-time raid on Gaza's biggest hospital, soldiers interrogated patients in the compound's courtyard while other Palestinians stood stripped to their underwear.

"All men 16 years and above, raise your hands," a soldier shouted in accented Arabic through a loudspeaker at those sheltering inside Al-Shifa hospital, which has been at the centre of fierce urban combat for days.

For many, gaming is a waste of time. Hours lost staring at glowing screens. But Jordan is betting on its youth to capture a slice of a lucrative global market.

At the Jordan Gaming Lab, Nasser Kasabreh, 21, sits behind his computer, working on a game he has been developing over the past months.

He and two friends have already designed three video games including "Drift Arabs", downloaded on Google Play more than 100,000 times. But he confides "our ambition is still much greater than this".

Nearly five times more people will likely die due to extreme heat in the coming decades, an international team of experts said Wednesday, warning that without action on climate change the "health of humanity is at grave risk".

Lethal heat was just one of the many ways the world's still-increasing use of fossil fuels threatens human health, according to The Lancet Countdown, a major annual assessment carried out by leading researchers and institutions.