A building collapsed Sunday in Syria's war-damaged second city of Aleppo, killing 16 people including children, with the search for survivors extending into the night.

Much of Aleppo was destroyed during Syria's conflict that began nearly 12 years ago and left many of the remaining structures in a decrepit state.

"The number of victims of the residential building collapse... has risen to 16 dead," said state news agency SANA. A war monitor said they were Syrians who had been displaced during the war.

Despite a slackening of street activity in the face of a brutal crackdown, Iranian protesters are still challenging the Islamic regime four months into their movement, observers say.

There have been fewer daily street protests nationwide since November as the authorities seek to quell the protests with methods including capital punishment, which has already seen four protest-related executions.

But the anger unleashed by the death in mid-September of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for violating the Islamic republic's strict dress rules, has not subsided.

Sweden's bid for NATO membership is facing a dead end because Ankara's demands to Stockholm to hand over Kurdish activists and prevent rallies attacking Turkey's leadership have strained ties.

The chances of this changing after Turkey's parliamentary elections due in mid-May are uncertain, said Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University's Institute for Turkish Studies.

"We can now probably forget Turkish ratification before the elections, which seem to be scheduled for May 14," Levin told AFP.

"What happens after that depends in part on who wins."

Former Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid joined tens of thousands of protesters in Tel Aviv Saturday, as frustration mounts over a raft of controversial moves by the new administration.

"People who love the state came to defend its democracy, its courts, the idea of a common life and a common good," Lapid tweeted, vowing to "not give up until we win."

Saturday's demonstration was the largest so far since Lapid's successor Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power last month at the head of the most right-wing government in the country's history.

Iraq saw the Gulf Cup as a chance to rehabilitate its image after a years-long football hosting ban, but a deadly stampede and organising gaffes have dampened the cheer despite its home victory.

Thursday's stampede outside a football stadium ahead of the cup final in the southern city of Basra killed one person and injured dozens, medics and security sources have said.

"I felt like I was going to die," said fan Doha Hashem, recalling being caught in the crush as thousands of others, many without tickets, tried to enter the stadium after massing at the gates from around dawn.

Iran's judiciary is to rule by Friday on whether to release celebrated filmmaker Jafar Panahi on bail after his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, his lawyer said Saturday.

Panahi, 62, who has won a string of awards at European film festivals, was arrested on July 11 and had been due to serve a six-year sentence handed down in 2010 after his conviction for "propaganda against the system".

But on October 15, the Supreme Court quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Turkey on Saturday cancelled a visit by the Swedish defence minister over a demonstration by an anti-Islamic extremist in Stockholm, sparking a fresh crisis as Sweden tries to convince Ankara not to block its bid to join the NATO military alliance.

Turkish officials denounced the permission granted to Rasmus Paludan, a right-wing Swedish-Danish politician, to stage a protest Saturday in front of its embassy in the Swedish capital.

After a diatribe of almost an hour in which he attacked Islam and immigration in Sweden, Paludan set fire to the Koran with a lighter.

An Israeli civilian shot dead a Palestinian Saturday at a settler farm in the occupied West Bank after an attempted stabbing, the army said, the latest incident as violence surges in the territory.

A "terrorist was neutralised" during the "attempted stabbing attack" at Sde Efraim farm northwest of Ramallah, the Israeli military said, confirming a civilian had shot dead a Palestinian.

The Palestinian health ministry said 42-year-old Tariq Maali was killed "after the occupation (Israel) opened fire on him" near the Palestinian village of Kafr Nama.

Canada will repatriate twenty-three citizens who have been detained in northeast Syria in camps for family members of Islamic State group fighters, officials and a lawyer said Friday.

It would be the largest such repatriation of IS family members yet for Canada, and it comes after the families challenged the government in court, arguing Ottawa was obliged to repatriate the group under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

European investigators will question Lebanon's central bank chief Riad Salameh next month as part of a probe into his and his brother's affairs, a judicial official told AFP on Friday.

Investigators from France, Germany and Luxembourg heard witnesses in Beirut this week as part of the case of suspected financial misconduct including possible money laundering and embezzlement.

Salameh and his brother Raja both deny any wrongdoing.