Arab leaders on Wednesday vowed their "total support" for the Palestinian cause, as veteran Israeli hawk Benjamin Netanyahu inched closer to a return to power.
The declaration came in the final statement of the first Arab League summit since the United Arab Emirates normalised ties with the Jewish state in 2020, sparking a string of similar moves that have divided the region.
Qatar authorities said Wednesday they have seized 144 counterfeit World Cup trophies, the latest raid on fakes hitting the market ahead of the football tournament that starts later this month.
The interior ministry said officers launched an operation "acting on a piece of information about a website that promotes the sale of cups that mimic the true shape of the World Cup."
It released a photo showing the 144 life-sized trophies laid out across a floor and stated that "further legal procedures will be followed".
For Marjane Satrapi, whose classic "Persepolis" tells the story of a girl growing up in post-revolutionary Iran, finding a way to voice support for the anti-theocracy protests in her native land wasn't easy.
The best-selling author has lived and worked in France for over two decades, and no longer claims to represent the country's youths who are defying a vicious crackdown by security forces.
"How am I going to speak for them?" Satrapi told AFP in rare public comments since the start of the uprising.
Concern is growing for two jailed Iranian reporters who helped focus attention on the death of Mahsa Amini but who activists allege are now the targets of a smear campaign portraying them as spies.
Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi were detained in the initial phase of protests that erupted after Amini died following her arrest by Iran's morality police. The movement now poses the biggest challenge to the authorities since the 1979 revolution.
Germany and Israel on Wednesday paid posthumous tribute to two married couples who rescued Berlin Jews from the Nazis, at an emotional ceremony attended by four generations of the families' descendants.
Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor presented granddaughters of the rescuers with Righteous Among the Nations medals from Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial at the Berlin City Hall in the first such ceremony there in seven years.
Qatar has rejected calls for a compensation fund for migrant workers killed or injured during World Cup preparations, with the country's labour minister calling it a "publicity stunt".
Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri told AFP that Qatar is already handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages, and accused the Gulf state's critics of "racism".
Marri said Qatar already has a fund to deal with worker deaths and injuries.
Iranian authorities on Wednesday ordered an investigation into a video showing officers savagely beating a protester that rights groups said exposed the brutality of the crackdown on demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini's death.
The Islamic republic has been rocked by over six weeks of unrest following the death of Amini, 22, who had been arrested by Tehran's morality police. The movement is now seen as the biggest challenge to the country's leaders since the 1979 revolution.
Before Bahrain established the Gulf's first church in the 1930s, priests would visit from Iraq to perform services for a small Catholic community.
Now, its ranks swollen by foreign workers, mostly from India and the Philippines, the community is preparing to welcome the pope, the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics.
Pope Francis's visit this week, his second to the Arabian peninsula, will be especially emotional for Najla Uchi, whose father Salman built the Sacred Heart church that opened on Christmas Eve, 1939.
