The United States said Wednesday it will start letting Israelis visit without visas, granting a key wish of its ally after concluding it had reduced discrimination against Arab Americans -- an assessment rejected by some lawmakers and activists.

By the end of November, Israelis will be in the same league as citizens of most Western nations by not needing visas for trips of 90 days or less to the world's largest economy.

"We have been working on this for years, almost a decade," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The lawyer for an Italian-Palestinian student detained by Israel since August called Wednesday on Italy to intervene, saying he was being held in violation of his legal rights.

Khaled El Qaisi, 27, has been detained by Israel without charges since August 31, when he was arrested while crossing from the West Bank to Jordan after a family vacation in his home city of Bethlehem.

On a summer evening, Iraqis smoke shisha and go bowling at a sprawling riverside complex in Baghdad, one of the many new investments reviving the capital after decades of turmoil.

"Iraq is fertile ground for investments," said Falah Hassan, the executive director of the complex of restaurants and shops built on the grounds of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces and named after the famed "One Thousand and One Nights" folktales.

At least 100 people were killed when a fire ripped through a crowded Iraqi wedding hall, officials said Wednesday, pointing to indoor fireworks as the likely cause for the blaze that sparked a panicked stampede for the exits.

More than 150 people were injured by the flames, the choking smoke or in the crush to flee the reception hall, which was reduced to charred debris and piles of twisted furniture under a partially collapsed ceiling.

Recent bullish statements by Saudi and Israeli leaders have fuelled speculation that a landmark normalisation deal is in the offing, despite daunting hurdles that have yet to be cleared.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Gulf kingdom's de facto ruler, said in a rare interview last week with Fox News that talks were progressing and "every day we get closer" to a breakthrough that could reorder the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed that up by telling the UN General Assembly "we are at the cusp" of "an historic peace".

Fighters loyal to the Syrian government have clashed with Kurdish-led forces in a mainly Arab district of eastern Syria, leaving 25 people dead in two days, a war monitor said Tuesday.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are backed by Washington, said they had "driven out the regime gunmen who had infiltrated the Dheiban area" of Deir Ezzor province in the gun battles which erupted on Monday.

Earlier this month, the same area saw 10 days of fighting between the SDF and armed Arab tribesmen in which 90 people were killed.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday sent its first delegation in three decades to the occupied West Bank to reassure Palestinians that it will defend their cause even as it forges closer ties with Israel.

In a sign of the thaw, Israel's Tourism Minister Haim Katz visited Riyadh on the same day, for the first such high-level public mission to the oil-rich kingdom.

Washington has urged its Middle East allies Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalise diplomatic relations, following on from similar deals involving the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

UK interior minister Suella Braverman was on Tuesday to question whether the United Nations Refugee Convention was "fit for our modern age" during a keynote speech at a US think-tank in Washington.

The speech at the centre-right American Enterprise Institute is intended to lay out an international plan to deal with the refugee crisis, a key political issue for her struggling Conservative party back home.

Braverman is set to call the UN convention "an incredible achievement of its age", according to extracts released to the British media.

The United States said Monday it refused a request by Iran's foreign minister to visit Washington last week, pointing to concerns about Tehran's record including past detentions of US citizens.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reportedly sought to travel to visit Iran's consular interest section following the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

"They did make that request and it was denied by the State Department," spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

Twenty years after invading Iraq, the United States is failing the survivors of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison by not offering any path to compensation, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

"Twenty years on, Iraqis who were tortured by US personnel still have no clear path for filing a claim or receiving any kind of redress or recognition from the US government," said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch.