Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to forge consensus Saturday on a host of contentious issues from Ukraine to climate change, as G20 leaders hold their annual summit in New Delhi.

Divided over Russia's war in Ukraine and gridlocked on finding agreement to slash carbon emissions, the summit's most tangible outcome could be the expected accession of the African Union to the grouping that represents 85 percent of global GDP.

The Group of 20 was conceived in the throes of the 2008 financial crisis as a way of managing the global economy.

Clubs in Europe could breathe a collective sigh of relief following the closure this week of the transfer window in the Saudi Pro League, whose huge spending over the summer was topped only by the English Premier League.

The window shut late Thursday, six days after the market closed in Europe's leading leagues, and Liverpool's Mohamed Salah stayed put at Anfield despite reports that Jeddah club Al-Ittihad had offered £150 million ($189 million) for the Egyptian superstar.

The United States confirmed Friday that it seized a tanker load of Iranian oil in April, just before Iran seized two vessels in the Gulf region, in the Justice Department's first official statement on the incident.

The department said that it had seized the Suez Rajan, a Greek-managed tanker, and its cargo of 980,000 barrels of crude oil, allegedly being sold by Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to China.

That sale allegedly violated US and international sanctions, and the United States government obtained a warrant early this year for its seizure.

The Palestinian Authority on Friday welcomed remarks by a former head of Israel's Mossad spy agency qualifying the legal situation in the occupied West Bank as "apartheid", but Israelis denounced the comments.

Tamir Pardo, who led Mossad from 2011 to 2016, told US news agency the Associated Press that "there is an apartheid state here", referring to the Palestinian territory Israel has occupied since 1967.

"In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state," he said in the interview published on Wednesday.

An outbreak of violence this week rocked the densely populated, walled-off Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Helweh on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

Over the years, Islamist militants have established a presence in the impoverished camp, home to tens of thousands of people, and its isolation has also made Ain al-Helweh a haven for those seeking to evade the Lebanese authorities.

A world facing catastrophic climate change is perilously off course in meeting goals for slashing carbon pollution and boosting finance for the developing world, according to the UN's first official progress report out Friday.

The 2015 Paris treaty has successfully driven climate action, but "much more is needed now on all fronts," said the report, which will underpin a crucial climate summit in Dubai at the end of the year.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has stripped Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas of the French capital's highest honour after he made remarks about the Holocaust that echoed anti-Semitic tropes, her office said on Friday.

Abbas could no longer hold the Grand Vermeil medal after he "justified the extermination of the Jews of Europe" in World War II, her office told AFP.

"The comments you made are contrary to our universal values and the historical truth of the Shoah," Hidalgo said in a letter to Abbas sent on Thursday. "You can therefore no longer hold this distinction."

Clashes in a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon have left 20 people wounded, official news agency NNA reported Friday, weeks after a deadly outbreak of violence rocked Ain al-Helweh.

The fighting late Thursday in the camp, which is located on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, once again pitted members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement against Islamist militants.

An AFP correspondent in Sidon reported the sound of intermittent automatic weapon fire and rocket launchers emanating from within the camp on Friday morning.

US President Joe Biden and other G20 leaders gathered in New Delhi on Friday for their annual summit, as deep divisions between heavyweight members and a no-show by China's Xi Jinping called the bloc's relevance into question.

The Group of 20 was conceived in the throes of the 2008 financial crisis as a way of managing the global economy.

But finding consensus among members has been increasingly difficult in recent years.

Thousands of Israelis rallied Thursday in Jerusalem in support of the hard-line government's judicial overhaul ahead of a court hearing on a key plank of the controversial reform package.

The crowd gathered in front of the Supreme Court, carrying Israeli flags banners decrying what the demonstrators view as judicial interference in the government's proposals, an AFP correspondent said.

"We think that the hearing should not even take place because it is not possible for the court judge its own undefined role," said protester Racheli Van Buren, 59.