Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Thursday his country was "committed to the sovereignty" of Ukraine during the first visit by an Israeli minister to the war-torn nation since the Russian invasion began nearly a year ago.

"Israel stands firmly in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and remains committed to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," Cohen said during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

Shortly after arriving, the minister visited the Kyiv suburb Bucha, the site of an alleged massacre of Ukrainian civilians.

Five months since protests broke out in Iran, a divided opposition in and outside of the country is seeking unity that has so far eluded foes of the Islamic republic.

Opponents of the Shiite theocracy, which has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah, have long been known for bashing each other as much as the ayatollahs.

But a push for unity on future strategy and leadership has emerged in the hopes of unseating the regime, as the protests provide it with its most significant challenge yet.

Dancing to Iraqi pop made TikTok personality Om Fahad a hit among tens of thousands of followers, but now she is in prison, caught up in a state campaign targeting "decadent content".

The young Iraqi woman using that pseudonym was sentenced early this month to half a year behind bars for the light-hearted video clips that show her in tight-fitting clothes.

A new government campaign aims to cleanse social media platforms of content that breaches Iraqi "mores and traditions", the interior ministry announced in January.

Saif al-Adel, an Iran-based Egyptian, has become the head of Al-Qaeda following the July 2022 death of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the US State Department said Wednesday.

"Our assessment aligns with that of the UN -- that al-Qaeda's new de facto leader Saif al-Adel is based in Iran," a state department spokesperson said.

The United Nations report released Tuesday said that the predominant view of member states is that Adel is now the group's leader, "representing continuity for now."

Israel expanded Wednesday its policy of stripping citizenship over "terrorism" offences, with parliament announcing lawmakers had passed legislation targeting those who receive funds from the Palestinian Authority.

The bill, which passed with 94 votes in favour and 10 against in the Knesset, also paves the way for Israel to expel people from the country or annexed east Jerusalem.

A rights group said the move was "in violation of international law", while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed it on Twitter as "our answer to terrorism".

The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday pledged an additional $50 million in assistance to quake-hit Syria, the official WAM news agency said, bringing the total value of pledges to more than $100 million.

The announcement came more than nine days after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck Syria and Turkey, killing nearly 40,000 people.

It also followed an appeal by the United Nations on Tuesday for $397 million to help earthquake victims in the war-scarred country, where the disaster has left millions in desperate need of aid.

Tunisia's main opposition coalition on Wednesday slammed a string of "repressive" arrests mainly targeting critics of President Kais Saied, including members of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party.

Police in the North African country -- birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings -- have arrested 10 public figures since Saturday, also including the director of a popular radio station and a prominent businessman.

Five Western governments said this week they were "deeply troubled" by the Israeli government's decision to give retroactive permission to nine settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank and build new homes.

The opposition voiced by the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States has drawn attention to Israel's settlement policy. Here are answers to some key questions:

- What are settlements? -

Settlements are Israeli villages, towns and even cities built on territory Israel seized during the Six-Day War of 1967.

Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, long accused of inflaming Jewish-Arab tensions, has set his sights on one of the conflict's most sensitive issues: Palestinian prisoners.

Since joining Israel's new government led by veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last year, Ben-Gvir has pledged to ensure Palestinian inmates are not being treated too comfortably.

Behind a dark and opaque storefront in Tel Aviv, an Israeli company is speeding up online shopping by replacing staff with robots that manoeuvre around small storerooms.

Whirring along a rail between two long shelves packed with coffee capsules, a robot stopped, pivoted to the right, shone a light before grabbing an item and dropping it into a paper bag.

"Shoppers want to receive their items faster and faster," said Eyal Yair, co-founder and CEO of 1MRobotics, which built the automated storeroom late last year.