Iran's Islamic clerical regime is divided in its response to months of unprecedented protests, wavering between repression and what it views as conciliatory gestures trying to quell the discontent, analysts say.

"The conflicting messages we are getting from the Iranian regime suggest an internal debate on how to deal with ongoing protests," said Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver.

"In most authoritarian regimes, there are hawks and doves" who disagree on how repressive the state should be during crises, he said.

An Iranian man has been arrested in western Germany suspected of preparing an "Islamist attack" using cyanide and ricin, police and prosecutors said Sunday.

The 32-year-old man was "suspected of having prepared a serious act of violence threatening the security of the state by obtaining cyanide and ricin with a view to committing an Islamist attack", police in Muenster and Recklinghausen, along with the Duesseldorf prosecutor's office, said in a statement.

Thousands of Israelis protested on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, regarded as the most right-wing in Israeli history, an AFP correspondent said.

Protesters brandished signs with slogans including "Democracy in danger" and "Together against fascism and apartheid" in the coastal city of Tel Aviv.

Some waved Israeli and rainbow flags while others held a large banner reading "crime minister" -- a slogan widely used by Israelis during regular demonstrations against Netanyahu in past years.

French politicians paid tribute Saturday to Charlie Hebdo staff and other victims of the January 2015 Islamist attacks, days after the satirical weekly's latest edition sparked outrage in Iran.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted the names of all 17 victims of a spate of attacks eight years ago in and around Paris, including the 12 people killed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo.

"We will never forget you," he added, with a cartoon by the well-known French cartoonist Plantu below.

Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo could make his Saudi Arabian debut on January 22 after he was successfully registered by new team Al Nassr, a club source told AFP on Saturday.

Ronaldo, who was unveiled to fans this week, joined the squad list after Al Nassr terminated Manchester United-linked striker Vincent Aboubakar to stay within the maximum eight foreign nationals stipulated by the Saudi league.

Thousands of demonstrators marched in central Paris on Saturday to pay tribute to three Kurdish activists murdered a decade ago.

The march, an annual event since the killings on January 9, 2013, came two weeks after an eerily similar triple slaying on December 23 at the Kurdish Cultural Centre in Paris -- just a few minutes' walk from the site of the earlier shootings.

The organisers said at least 25,000 people from all over Europe had joined the rally. Paris police put the figure at 10,000.

Iran drew international condemnation on Saturday as it executed two men for killing a paramilitary force member in November during unprecedented protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in custody.

The latest hangings double the number of executions to four over the nationwide unrest, which has escalated since mid-September into calls for an end to Iran's clerical regime.

They also come in defiance of a campaign by international rights groups for the lives of the two men to be spared.

"It's here in Paris where my sister and her friends were killed," said Metin Cansiz, the brother of Kurdish activist Sakine Cansiz, who was gunned down in January 2013.

"France has a debt of justice towards us."

His eyes are red and his hands tremble as he looks back on the fate of his sister, killed in the French capital on the night of January 9, 2013.

Cansiz, a white-haired 61-year-old, was speaking to AFP days before the 10th anniversary of the still-unsolved slayings. His family, he said, had lost a loved one "sacrificed" on the altar of Franco-Turkish relations.

Iraq on Friday welcomed football teams from across the region for the Gulf Cup, ending nearly three decades of repeated bans on international matches in the war-torn and corruption-plagued country.

The tournament in the southern city of Basra brings together eight teams, with Friday's opening match seeing the host nation take on Oman.

More than 10,000 foreign fans had arrived by the afternoon in the city, located a short distance from Iraq's borders with Kuwait and Iran, an official from Basra's provincial government told AFP.

Two teenagers suspected of desecrating dozens of Christian graves at a Jerusalem cemetery have been arrested, Israeli police said Friday.

Toppled crosses and damaged graves were discovered earlier this week at the Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, where Christians believe Jesus's Last Supper took place. The area is adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City.

Officers on Thursday evening "arrested two suspects, residents of central (Israel) aged 18 and 14", a police statement said.

The pair were set to appear in court on Friday, the statement added.