Scientists have discovered a hidden passage inside Egypt's Great Pyramid, the authorities announced on Thursday, part of a seven-year international research project.

The passage is nine metres (30 feet) in length and more than two metres in width, the antiquities ministry said in a statement.

Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Issa told reporters at the ancient site in Giza also known as the Khufu, or Cheops, pyramid, that the "gabled corridor" with a triangular ceiling "was found on the northern face of the Great Pyramid of King Khufu".

Leading Syrian academic and opposition figure Bassma Kodmani died in Paris on Thursday aged 64 after a long battle with cancer, her family told AFP.

Born in Damascus in 1958, she spent a large part of her life in exile and was also a French citizen.

Her sister, journalist Hala Kodmani, said she died of cancer in hospital in the French capital, where she lived.

Kodmani was a leading member of the Syrian opposition after peaceful protests broke out in the country in 2011.

Wielding long sticks and with their faces wrapped in Palestinian chequered keffiyeh scarves, young men set out on a night patrol to guard their village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Each night, the team gathers at Turmus Ayya in the north of the West Bank, ready to raise the alarm in the event of a raid by Israeli settlers, who have set up bases in outposts around the village.

"We do not intend to attack anyone -- we work to defend our people and our village, our home, our land and our honour," one said, requesting anonymity for fear of arrest by Israeli forces.

Eight truffle-hunters were killed and more than 30 injured in eastern Syria when the vehicle they were travelling in hit a landmine, a war monitor said Thursday.

"Eight citizens were killed and at least 35 wounded when a landmine... exploded as they were travelling to look for truffles on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

State news agency SANA blamed Islamic State group jihadists for planting the mine.

Controversial legal reforms being debated in Israel's parliament have sparked fears in the high-tech and financial sectors that foreign investors will be scared off in a blow to growth prospects.

The new legislation has been spearheaded by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took office in December and is regarded as the most right-wing in Israeli history.

It aims to curtail the powers of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.

A British warship intercepted a boat smuggling Iranian weapons, including anti-tank missiles, off the coast of Oman in a joint operation with US forces last week, officials said Thursday.

The small craft, travelling at "high speed" after dark in international waters, was initially spotted by US aerial surveillance, the British embassy in the United Arab Emirates said.

The boat, travelling south from Iran, was intercepted by forces from British frigate HMS Lancaster before it could navigate back to Iranian territorial waters on February 23.

"Listen to this! One. Two. Three!" Down the crackling phone line from the women's wing of Tehran's Evin prison, a chorus of prisoners then launch into raucous song.

It's a Persian rendition of the Italian protest song "Bella Ciao".

"All for one and one for all!" they sing, laughing in shared defiance in support of the "Woman, life, freedom" protests that have shaken Iran's clerical authorities for five months.

Internet privacy company Proton can spot attacks on democracy in a country before they hit the headlines, simply by watching demand for its services explode, its chief told AFP.

When Russia blocked access to independent news sites following its invasion of Ukraine a year ago, the small company which provides virtual private networks (VPNs) saw "a 9,000 percent increase in sign-ups over just a period of a few days", company chief executive Andy Yen said in an interview last week.

Israeli forces killed Wednesday a Palestinian man during a raid in the occupied West Bank following the fatal shooting of an Israeli-American motorist earlier this week, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli army said soldiers fired at two people who tried to flee after they entered the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp near Jericho to arrest suspects in the Monday shooting attack in the same area.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on Thursday to the International Space Station carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and the second Emirati to voyage to space.

The SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 mission launched at 12:34 am (0534 GMT) Thursday from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a livestream of the launch showed.

The launch had been scrubbed on Monday just minutes before liftoff because of a clog in a filter that supplies ignition fluid to start the rocket engines.