Britain's top court ruled Wednesday that a Guantanamo detainee waterboarded by the CIA can use English law in his claim against the UK government over alleged complicity in the torture.

Abu Zubaydah was the first of a number of prisoners to be subjected to CIA "enhanced interrogation" techniques following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Saudi-born Palestinian, whose full name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and has been held without trial at the US Guantanamo camp in Cuba since 2006.

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian motorist in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while the army said it had "neutralised a terrorist".

Basel Wajeeh al-Muhtasib, 28, "died as a result of being shot by occupation (Israeli army) bullets" as he drove through Bayt Inun junction, north of the city of Hebron, Wafa reported.

Israeli security forces cordoned off the area preventing Muhtasib from being taken to hospital, the report said.

Kuwait's new emir Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmed al-Sabah on Wednesday criticised parliament and cabinet for harming national interests as he was formally sworn in before lawmakers as the country's 17th ruler.

Officially taking over from his half-brother Sheikh Nawaf, who passed away on Saturday, Sheikh Meshal is faced with the task of pulling the country out of longstanding political paralysis and reforming a bloated public sector that have turned Kuwait into one of the Gulf's most laggard states.

It takes a while but slowly the children gathered around volunteer entertainer Ruaa Hassuna in a Gaza camp start clapping along as her music offers some respite from the horrors around them.

Smiles light up the faces of the children, huddled amid the tents outside the south Gaza town of Rafah which shelter hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by more than two months of relentless Israeli bombardment.

Hopes rose Wednesday that Israel and Hamas may be inching toward another truce and hostage-release deal in the Gaza war, following talks in Europe and a visit to Egypt by the head of the Palestinian militant group.

While some talked of a truce, fighting raged and Gaza's Hamas government said the death toll in the Palestinian territory reached 20,000.

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there can be no Gaza ceasefire until Hamas militants are destroyed, but Washington expressed hope the truce talks can bring results.

A UN Security Council vote on a much-delayed resolution calling for a pause to the Israel-Hamas war was postponed again Wednesday as members wrangled over wording while the death toll in Gaza continued climbing.

The debate at the UN's Manhattan headquarters came against a backdrop of deteriorating conditions in Gaza, with a senior UN official saying Israel's steps to allow in aid were "far short" of mounting need.

The head of Hamas was due in Egypt on Wednesday for talks on a ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel said it was willing to agree to another pause in exchange for more hostages.

International pressure is mounting for a new truce that could ramp up aid to the besieged Palestinian territory, with the United Nations due to vote on calling for a ceasefire.

Hamas sources said Wednesday at least 11 people had been killed overnight in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip.

The United States has charged an Iranian and a Chinese national with allegedly supplying microelectronics to Iran for use in the drone program of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Hossein Hatefi Ardakani and Gary Lam, also known as Lin Jinghe, are accused in a September 2020 indictment unsealed on Tuesday with conspiring to illegally purchase and export US-made dual-use microelectronics to Iran.

The Israeli army said Tuesday it had demolished the family home of a Palestinian man accused of killing two Israelis -- a father and his son -- at a car wash in the occupied West Bank.

Police arrested Osama Bani Fadl in November after a months-long hunt, accusing him of killing Shay Silas Nigrekar and Aviad Nir in the Palestinian town of Huwara in August.

The two Israeli men were gunned down when they were at a car wash, in an attack that rocked the territory at the time.

Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi refused to appear on Tuesday at her first trial hearing since the award ceremony, describing the court as a "slaughterhouse", her family said.

Mohammadi, whose family accepted the 2023 prize in Oslo on her behalf on December 10, said the revolutionary court where she is being tried is responsible for ordering death sentences for young Iranians.