Brazilian police said Wednesday they arrested two people for involvement in plotting "terrorist attacks" in the country, which Israel's Mossad spy agency said were backed by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah against Israeli and Jewish targets.

Federal police said they had detained two suspects in Sao Paulo in an operation to "disrupt the preparation of terrorist attacks and secure evidence on the possible recruitment of Brazilians to carry out extremist acts in the country."

The Netherlands said Wednesday it was sending a navy ship to take humanitarian goods to Gaza "when possible", as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte held talks with his Israeli counterpart.

The coastal patrol vessel MS Holland will leave in mid-November and be near Cyprus by the end of the month, a Dutch navy official said.

"It's actually to pre-position the ship in case humanitarian aid or evacuation is necessary," Alex Kranenburg told AFP.

An Iranian court has ordered a five-year jail sentence against a French national tried on national security charges and held in prison for over a year, his family announced on Wednesday.

The French foreign ministry swiftly denounced the sentence against Louis Arnaud, calling it "unacceptable."

Arnaud, a banking consultant, was detained in Iran in September last year and has been held in Tehran's Evin prison.

As the sun sets on the hills of northern Israel, four rockets fired from Lebanon trace arcs through the sky before being intercepted with a bang by air defences.

"Hezbollah is harassing us," said Yoav Hermoni, the spokesman for Dan, a kibbutz where such exchanges of fire have become common while Israel has been at war in the Gaza Strip for the past month.

The Iran-backed movement in Lebanon has exchanged fire with Israel's army repeatedly in the weeks since the October 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas plunged Israel into a war in Gaza to the south.

An Iranian court has ordered a five-year jail sentence against a French national tried on national security charges, his family announced on Wednesday.

Louis Arnaud, a banking consultant, was detained in Iran in September last year and has been held in Tehran's Evin prison.

Arnaud was handed the sentence by a Revolutionary Court on charges of making propaganda against and seeking to harm the security of the Islamic republic, the family said in a statement.

The "extreme" drought gripping Iraq, Syria and Iran would not have occurred without climate change caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, scientists said Wednesday, warning that punishing dry spells will become more intense as the world warms.

High temperatures due to human-caused climate change made the drought "much more likely to happen" -- about 25 times more likely in Syria and Iraq and 16 times more likely in Iran, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.

British police came under mounting government pressure on Wednesday to ban a pro-Palestinian rally scheduled to take place in London on the day the country commemorates its war dead.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called the protest against the Israel-Hamas war scheduled for Saturday "provocative and disrespectful".

Organisers have resisted pleas from Sunak and London's Metropolitan Police to postpone the demonstration, when tens of thousands of people are expected to demand a ceasefire in the month-old conflict.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled the fighting and bombardment in Gaza on Wednesday, as Israel said it was tightening the "stranglehold" around Hamas and again rejected a ceasefire without the release of hostages.

Calls for a ceasefire to protect civilians have built over a month into the war sparked when Hamas attacked Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and seized 239 hostages.

Plans to expand oil, gas and coal production by major fossil fuel countries would push the world far beyond the Paris deal's 1.5C global warming limit, the UN warned Wednesday.

The future of fossil fuels will be a key flashpoint when world leaders meet at the COP28 climate conference later this month, tasked with salvaging the world's agreed temperature thresholds.

G7 foreign ministers said Wednesday that they supported "humanitarian pauses and corridors" in the Hamas-Israel war but refrained from calling for a ceasefire.

The group also said after talks in Japan that their support for Ukraine in its war with Russia "will never waver" while calling on China not to support Moscow in the conflict.