Six Palestinians were killed in sweeping Israeli raids Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, in what the army described as an assault targeting the emerging "Lion's Den" armed group.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that Wadih Al Houh, a leader of a new coalition of Palestinian fighters dubbed The Lions' Den, had been among those killed in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The Palestinian health ministry initially reported three dead and 19 wounded shot "by Israeli fire in Nablus".

French World Cup-winning hero Zinedine Zidane said Monday it was "time to forget the controversies and focus on the football" at the upcoming World Cup in Qatar, despite calls to boycott the tournament over the Gulf state's rights record and treatment of migrant workers.

"I hope France have a great tournament but I don't know yet if I will go to Qatar," former Real Madrid coach Zidane, 50, said as he attended the unveiling of his own wax figure at the Musee Grevin in Paris.

In drought-hit Iraq, six out of 10 households have had their access to drinking water disrupted and a quarter of farmers have seen crop yields drastically fall this year, said a survey published Monday.

Iraq has been battered by three years of drought, low rainfall and reduced river flows, and the United Nations has ranked it the fifth most vulnerable country to some key effects of climate change.

Sudan on Monday named a new military commander for troubled Blue Nile state, where recent bitter ethnic clashes over land have left at least 200 people dead and sparked angry demonstrations.

The new chief comes a day after eyewitnesses reported that crowds of thousands protested in front of army headquarters in the state capital Damazin, accusing the government of failing to protect them, with the local university suspending work.

Ahead of Israel's elections, a 21-year-old TikTok star has tapped into the economic frustrations of the country's disaffected youth, hoping to channel her social media following into political power.

After her short videos clocked up hundreds of thousands of views, Hadar Muchtar has taken to the streets to campaign for her movement, Youth on Fire, or "Tzeirim Boarim" in Hebrew, ahead of the November 1 polls.

On a warm autumn evening in Jerusalem's central Mahane Yehuda market, Muchtar clutched a microphone and called out: "We don't have enough money to live here!"

A week before Israel's fifth general election in less than four years, one question dominates: will the hawkish ex-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu return to power?

Polls show he would likely need heavy backing from the country's rising extreme-right to form a government -- a scenario which, one expert warned, would spell "disaster" for Israel's democracy.

Netanyahu served as premier for a total of 15 years, a record in Israel's 74-year history, before he was ousted in June 2021 by a motley alliance of ideologically divided parties united only by their opposition to him.

Spanish fashion giant Zara is facing boycott calls in Israel after the company's local franchise head hosted extreme-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir for a campaign event.

Recent opinion polls suggest Ben-Gvir has been gaining strength ahead of the November 1 election, which could see his nationalist alliance emerge as the third-largest bloc in parliament.

His meeting with Joey Schwebel, chair of Zara's Israel franchisee Trimera, sparked a backlash after local media reported it last week, with some people burning Zara items and pushing for a boycott.

Lebanon's parliament failed Monday for a fourth time to elect a successor to President Michel Aoun, with lawmakers divided over a candidate opposed by the powerful Hezbollah movement.

Already governed by a caretaker cabinet, crisis-hit Lebanon is hurtling towards an imminent power vacuum, with just days before the current president's term finishes at the end of the month.

Parliament speaker Nabih Berri called for another vote on Thursday in the hope of overcoming long-running arguments.

Police in Qatar have arbitrarily detained and abused members of the LGBTQ community ahead of the World Cup next month, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Monday.

The Gulf state, where homosexuality is illegal, strongly denied that anyone has been detained because of their sexual orientation and condemned the rights group's reporting.

HRW said it had "documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022".

The most recent case was in September, the US-based rights group said.

Star Moroccan rapper ElGrande Toto on Sunday apologised for causing offence through recent public statements in which he acknowledged using cannabis.

His original comments had sparked an outcry in the country.

"I offer my apologies to anyone offended by my words, starting with the authorities and my public," ElGrande Toto, whose real name is Taha Fahssi, told a packed press conference.

"We are not bad people. We rap, and rap isn't bad.