Oil producers Saudi Arabia and Iraq stood their ground at UN climate talks on Sunday as they faced pressure to drop their opposition to a phase-out of fossil fuels at COP28 in Dubai.

With less than 48 hours left before the conference's official end, COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber invited ministers to give their views in a "majlis" -- a traditional Gulf Arab meeting held in a circle.

While Jaber called the gathering in an effort to produce a compromise, warning that "failure is not an option", countries held firm in their positions.

A small minority of countries at UN climate talks are blocking a growing consensus to phase out fossil fuels, at-risk Vanuatu's climate change minister told AFP on Sunday.

The COP28 meeting in Dubai is at a "critical stage", said Ralph Regenvanu, whose low-lying Pacific nation faces a severe threat from rising sea levels and tropical cyclones.

"The majority here wants fossil-fuel language, language that takes us away from fossil fuels, that indicates a desire for us to move according to the science, according to the 1.5 degree target," Regenvanu said in an interview.

Mediation efforts are continuing to secure a new Gaza ceasefire despite ongoing Israeli bombardment that is "narrowing the window" for a successful outcome, Qatar's prime minister said on Sunday.

"Our efforts as the state of Qatar along with our partners are continuing. We are not going to give up," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the Doha Forum more than two months into the Israel-Hamas war.

Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi denounced Sunday a "tyrannical and anti-women religious" government in Iran, in a speech delivered by her children who accepted the award in her absence.

"The Iranian people will dismantle obstruction and despotism through their persistence," Mohammadi said in the speech.

"Have no doubt -– this is certain," she said.

Mohammadi, who has campaigned against the compulsory wearing of the hijab and the death penalty in Iran, has been held since 2021 in Tehran's Evin prison.

A French frigate that shot down two drones in the Red Sea was acting in self-defence after coming under attack from the unmanned aerial vehicles, the foreign ministry in Paris said on Monday.

The French general staff reported on Sunday that the Languedoc frigate, operating in the Red Sea, had opened fire on two drones heading straight towards it from the Yemen coast, destroying both.

The incident came after Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels threatened on Saturday to attack any vessels heading to Israeli ports unless food and medicine were allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Ethiopian migrants who crossed the sea in pursuit of a better life have one goal in mind as they hide in the Saudi mountains: avoid border guards, and their deadly shots.

Only when night falls on this part of southern Saudi Arabia do the undocumented migrants dare venture into nearby villages to scavenge for food, returning with scraps they hope will keep them alive until smugglers can find them a job.

Hamas warned Sunday that no hostages would leave Gaza alive unless its demands for prisoner releases are met, while the World Health Organization said the territory's health system was collapsing after more than two months of war.

Hamas triggered the conflict with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7 in which it killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures, and dragged around 240 hostages back to Gaza.

Egyptians went to the polls on Sunday in a presidential election overshadowed by war in neighbouring Gaza and with little doubt the incumbent Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would secure a third term.

In a country gripped by the most severe financial crisis in its recent history -- inflation has hovered near 40 percent after the currency lost half its value and drove up the cost of imports -- the economy is at the centre of Egyptians' concerns.

Even before the current crisis, about two-thirds of the country's nearly 106 million people were living on or below the poverty line.

The president of an Ivy League university stepped down Saturday in the wake of a firestorm of criticism after a congressional hearing on the rise of anti-Semitism on US campuses.

University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill "voluntarily tendered her resignation," the chair of the university's board of trustees Scott Bok announced.

Bok also stepped down himself, a university spokesman confirmed to AFP.

Close to 70,000 migrants were intercepted trying to cross the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy this year, more than double the 2022 figure, the Tunisian National Guard told AFP on Saturday.

Tunisia, alongside Libya, is the principal departure point for thousands of migrants hoping to reach Europe.

The number intercepted by Tunisian authorities was 69,963 for the first 11 months of 2023, compared to 31,297 in the same period last year, according to data from the National Guard.

Foreigners made up 78 percent, while the rest were Tunisians.