A shooting in the northern West Bank town of Huwara on Sunday seriously wounded an Israeli, the army and rescuers said, as Israeli and Palestinian officials in Egypt agreed to "restore calm".

The attack in Huwara came three weeks after the fatal shooting of two Israeli settlers, also in the same occupied West Bank town, adding to a surge in violence this year and to fears of escalation during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starting in the coming week.

The UAE's president on Sunday told his Syrian counterpart it was time for diplomatically isolated Damascus to be reintegrated into the wider Arab region during a meeting in Abu Dhabi, state media reported.

The trip by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- his second to the oil-rich United Arab Emirates in as many years -- comes after a visit to Oman last month, his only official engagements in Arab countries since the start of Syria's war in 2011.

Kuwait's constitutional court on Sunday nullified last year's legislative elections and ruled to reinstate the previous parliament, state media said, as a political crisis roils the oil-rich Gulf state.

The ruling was made due to discrepancies in the decree dissolving the previous parliament, the official KUNA news agency said.

The September polls were the most inclusive in a decade, and saw opposition members take a parliamentary majority with 28 out of 50 seats.

In the depths of Morocco's Akka oasis, two archaeologists pore over the floor of a synagogue searching for the minutest of fragments testifying to the country's ancient Jewish history.

They are from a team of six researchers from Morocco, Israel and France, part of a project to revive the North African country's Jewish heritage after it was all but lost following the minority's exodus.

The discovery of a fragment of a Hebrew religious manuscript is "a sign from above", jokes Israeli archaeologist Yuval Yekutieli, from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Kuwait's constitutional court on Sunday nullified last year's legislative elections and ruled in favour of reinstating the previous parliament, state media said, as a political crisis roils the oil-rich Gulf state.

The September polls -- the most inclusive in a decade -- had seen opposition members clinch 28 out of 50 seats, giving them a parliamentary majority.

The vote marked a victory for opposition figures, many of whom had stayed out of elections in the past decade over what they saw as alleged meddling by the executive authorities over parliament.

Israelis gathered in towns and cities nationwide on Saturday for an 11th straight week of protests against the judicial reform plans of the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The protesters fear that the proposed reforms, which are already moving through parliament and would increase the power of politicians over the courts, are a threat to Israeli democracy.

In Tel Aviv's Dizengoff square, thousands of demonstrators waved the blue and white Israeli flag of Israel, as well as the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ community.

Pope Francis on Saturday greeted thousands of refugees brought to Europe by Christian charities, recognising their difficult journeys and hailing their desire to "live free from fear and insecurity".

At the Paul VI hall in the Vatican, the 86-year-old pontiff also thanked those who helped the refugees settle into their new lives, saying that "welcome is the first step towards peace".

The audience included many of the 6,000 people who have been helped to Europe through "humanitarian corridors" run by Christian groups since 2016.

Turkey's top diplomat said Saturday President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would meet to mark the end of a decade of estrangement between the two countries.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking alongside his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry during a visit to Cairo, said Ankara wanted "to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries at the highest level".

Shoukry said there was a "political will coming from the presidents of our two countries... seeking to normalise relations".

Tehran is emptying ahead of the Persian New Year, as is the case annually, but this time around Iranians are being forced to adapt as the festival coincides with Ramadan.

Over 300 million people in a dozen countries -- including Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey -- will wish each other "Nowruz mobarak" or Happy New Year on Tuesday, when Iranians mark the entry into the year 1402 on the Persian calendar.

China's shock success at bringing Saudi Arabia and Iran together has challenged the United States' longstanding role as the key outside power broker in the Middle East.

Beijing's persuading archrivals Riyadh and Tehran to reestablish diplomatic relations upstaged the United States just as Washington appears powerless to intervene in the political tensions in Israel over the Netanyahu government's sharp-right turn, which has inflamed Palestinians.