Israel and Hamas, engaged in heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip, both angrily rejected on Monday moves to arrest their leaders for war crimes made before an international court.

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor Karim Khan said he had applied for arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders over the conflict.

Israel slammed as a "historical disgrace" the demand targeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, while the Palestinian militant group Hamas said it "strongly condemns" the move.

The death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash is a major blow to the Islamic republic's clerical leadership, an exiled opposition group said Monday, predicting a succession of crises.

The People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) and its political wing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) have long detested Raisi, accusing him of involvement in the 1988 mass executions of thousands of their members and other dissidents when he was a young prosecutor.

The Israeli flag has flown over the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing for two weeks, but uncertainty over the future of the key aid terminal has quickly become a thorn on Israel's side.

Egypt has refused to reopen its side of the crossing as long as Israeli troops control the Palestinian side, keeping shut one of the only points through which badly needed aid was reaching Gaza.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who died in a helicopter crash along with President Ebrahim Raisi, was known for his fierce anti-Israel sentiment and scepticism of the West.

A career diplomat and conservative figure with close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, Amir-Abdollahian took office following Raisi's 2021 election win.

State media at the time hailed his support for "the Axis of Resistance" of Tehran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East arrayed against arch-foe Israel.

US President Joe Biden's national security advisor briefed Benjamin Netanyahu on the "potential" of a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia after holding talks in the region, the White House said Sunday.

Jake Sullivan also called on the Israeli prime minister to link the military operation against Hamas in Gaza with a "political strategy" for the future of the Palestinian enclave, it said in a readout of the talks.

Filmmakers Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir spent so much time following an all-girl theatre troupe in a remote Egyptian village that at one point someone tried to sell them a house.

"He thought we were always there so we might as well live there," Riyadh told AFP after the premiere of their documentary at the Cannes Film Festival.

"The Brink of Dreams" follows a group of teenage girls in rural southern Egypt over four years, between rehearsals, as they navigate the tough decisions that will determine their adulthood.

Fear and worry weighed on Iran Sunday as the Islamic republic waited for news on the fate of President Ebrahim Raisi after his helicopter went missing in a foggy mountain area.

Thousands of Muslim faithful prayed for his safe return in mosques nationwide -- including amid the minarets of 63-year-old Raisi's hometown, the shrine city of Mashhad.

Tearful Iranians fearing the worst were also praying for Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was with him on the helicopter, in Valiasr Square in central Tehran.

An Israeli minister on Sunday criticised in Madrid Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's plans to recognise a Palestinian state, saying this would be "rewarding" the attack carried out by Hamas against Israel.

Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli was speaking at a Madrid meeting of global far-right leaders organised by Spain's Vox party.

"Unfortunately, the current prime minister of Spain, Sanchez, believes that the Palestinians should be rewarded for the massacre -- that this is the time to give them a state," he told the meeting.

US President Joe Biden said Sunday he heard the voice of Gaza war protesters as some students turned their backs on his graduation ceremony speech at the former university of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

A small number of graduates carried out the silent protest, with some holding Palestinian flags and one holding up a fist as Biden spoke at Morehouse College, a historically Black university in Atlanta, Georgia.

Lying bedridden in her room at the recently reopened Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in Gaza, Alaa Abu Ahmed is relieved that she can finally restart her medical treatment.

Displacement because of fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory interrupted Abu Ahmed's treatment for a chronic condition.

Over a week in February, the hospital was attacked when Khan Yunis was the focus of fighting and soldiers raided it, saying Hamas was holding Israeli hostages there.