At least 10 female farm workers died in Egypt when a minibus plunged off a river ferry and into the Nile northwest of Cairo on Tuesday, the health ministry said.

"The toll is at 10 and could rise," ministry spokesman Hossam Abdelghaffar told AFP.

The state's flagship Al-Ahram newspaper reported the accident earlier and said the driver, who had released the handbrake, was arrested while trying to flee.

He had gotten into "a verbal argument" with one of the passengers before leaving the vehicle, it reported.

Israeli forces battled Hamas in Gaza on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily dismissed a bid for an international arrest warrant against him on charges of war crimes in the Palestinian territory.

US President Joe Biden backed Netanyahu in condemning as "outrageous" the bid by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor who also sought warrants against leaders of Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The first trial in France of officials from the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad opened on Tuesday, with three top security officers tried in absentia for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The Paris Criminal Court is hearing cases against the officials for their role in the deaths of two French Syrian men, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, arrested in Damascus in 2013.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's British-born wife Asma, who recovered from breast cancer in 2019, has been diagnosed with leukaemia, the president's office said on Tuesday.

"First Lady Asma al-Assad has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia," an aggressive cancer of the white blood cells involved in battling infection, it said in a statement.

She will undergo a "specialised treatment protocol" that requires social distancing to avoid infection, the statement said, adding that she will "temporarily withdraw from all direct engagements as part of her treatment plan".

From camel drivers in the Sahara to nomads on the Mongolian steppe, traditional herders the world over rely on earth's wildest open spaces to support an ancient way of life.

But the expansive plains, tundra and savanna they inhabit are in much greater peril than previously thought, researchers said Tuesday in a major reassessment of the health of these crucial environments.

As much as half of all rangelands -- encompassing some of nature's most striking vistas from the Arctic to the tropics, deserts and mountains -- are believed to be degraded, the report said.

Palestinian health officials said eight Palestinians were killed Tuesday in an Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Jenin, where an AFP correspondent reported masked gunmen exchanged fire with Israeli forces.

Smoke billowed over the refugee camp adjacent to the city after a series of explosions inside, while at least five gunmen clashed with troops in a nearby downtown neighbourhood, the correspondent reported.

Human rights groups and emigre opposition factions expressed regret that Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi's death meant he never saw justice for crimes they say he committed during decades as a leading figure in the Islamic republic.

A man who rose quickly through the ranks after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Raisi was accused by activists of overseeing mass executions of prisoners in 1988 followed by a litany of human rights abuses as judiciary chief and later president.

The first trial in France of officials of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is to begin on Tuesday, with three top security officers to be tried in absentia for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The Paris Criminal Court will try the three officials for their role in the deaths of two French Syrian men, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, arrested in Damascus in 2013.

Tens of thousands mourned Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday after his death in a helicopter crash, amid political uncertainty ahead of an election for his successor next month.

Raisi and seven members of his entourage including foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were killed when their aircraft came down on a fog-shrouded mountainside in northern Iran on Sunday.

Waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president, mourners marched in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi's helicopter had been headed when it crashed.

Amal Clooney helped the International Criminal Court weigh evidence that led to the decision to seek arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders, the human rights lawyer said Monday.

The high-profile British-Lebanese barrister posted a statement on the website of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which she founded with her husband, American actor George Clooney.

Both she and the foundation had previously been criticized on social media for not speaking out over the civilian death toll in Gaza.