Kuwait dissolved parliament on Thursday after a protracted stalemate between cabinet ministers and lawmakers dragged on despite the accession of a new emir in December.

The official KUNA news agency said a "royal decree was issued to dissolve the national assembly" elected last June following a proposal by the prime minister that was approved by cabinet.

The royal decree carried by KUNA accused parliament of constitutional violations, including using "offensive and inappropriate" language.

Mohammed Khader goes from one pharmacy to another in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, desperately searching for his relatives' medicines amid a deepening shortage after months of war.

"This is the fifth pharmacy I've looked in," said the young man who was displaced from Jabalia refugee camp to Rafah.

He is just one of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians driven into the territory's southernmost city by Israel's relentless military campaign against the militant group Hamas.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said they fired missiles at a "British ship" off the country's coast on Thursday, the latest in a series of incidents that have disrupted global shipping.

The announcement followed reports by two maritime security agencies of an attack east of Yemen's Aden and came after the United States said on Thursday it had seized an Iranian weapons shipment in January destined for Yemen's rebels.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday committed to strengthening ties with Qatar during his first visit to the gas-rich Gulf emirate since 2016.

During a meeting with Qatar's ruler, Modi gave a "commitment to further expanding and deepening bilateral cooperation with Qatar", a statement from India's foreign ministry said.

The premier also thanked Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani for hosting the 800,000-strong Indian community in the tiny Gulf state.

Seventy-seven of the 99 journalists killed in 2023 were killed in the Israel-Hamas war, making the last 12 months the deadliest for the media in almost a decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

Killings of reporters would have dropped globally year-on-year had it not been for the deaths in that conflict, the CPJ said, although fatalities were stable in Somalia and the Philippines.

The toll is the highest since 2015 and an increase of nearly 44 percent on 2022's figures.

The Israeli army alleged on Thursday that bodies of hostages could be held at a hospital in southern Gaza, after troops raided the facility which medics say has been "besieged" for a month.

The military said troops were involved in a "precise and limited operation" inside Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis city, after intense fighting between troops and Hamas militants around the facility.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva denounced Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip Thursday as "collective punishment" after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.

On his second trip to Egypt and his first during his current term, Lula spoke to an Arab League meeting discussing the situation in the Palestinian territory which has been devastated by more than four months of war.

"We must put an end to this inhumanity and cowardice. Stop the collective punishment," the Brazilian leader said in a speech to the gathering.

Israel can compete in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, organisers said Thursday, despite calls for it to be excluded over the Gaza war like Russia was after invading Ukraine.

Petitions have been circulating calling for Israel to be kicked out of the world's biggest live music event, which is being held in Malmo, Sweden, in May.

The European Broadcasting Union said it had conducted a review and decided Israel could participate in the kitsch annual pop extravaganza.

Hussein Barjawi had invited his daughter, her husband and their two young sons to dinner in south Lebanon, but an Israeli strike nearly wiped them all out, an official said Thursday.

A security source said a Hezbollah commander and two fighters from the powerful Lebanese movement were killed in the Israeli strike that targeted a building in the southern city of Nabatiyeh on Wednesday and also killed seven civilians from the same family.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said Thursday it had fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel, a day after Israeli strikes killed 15 people, including one of its commanders.

"Islamic resistance fighters fired dozens of Katyusha-type rockets at Kiryat Shmona," an Israeli town near the Lebanese border, Hezbollah said in a statement.

It said the rocket fire was "a first response" to the deadly Israeli strikes on the southern city of Nabatiyeh and Sawwaneh.