By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. government announced new sanctions on Thursday against firms and individuals that it says are aiding Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in the Middle East as it intensified its campaign to isolate Iran economically.

The latest sanctions are part of the Treasury Department's "Operation Economic Outcast," announced August 24, which aims to cut off Tehran's funding for the war, missile construction, cyberattacks and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Israel said Thursday it demolished key tunnels built by the Iran-backed Hezbollah group beneath the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, triggering a 4.1 magnitude tremor.

AFP journalists in the area heard several explosions. In a video shared by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, a huge fireball can be seen rising into the night sky. 

Morocco said on Thursday there were "no facts" establishing its involvement in the massive migrant rush into Spain's North African exclave of Ceuta in July.

More than 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco on July 30 and 31 in an unprecedented, chaotic surge that left scores dead and sparked European Union infighting over the touchy issue of migration.

The Moroccan foreign ministry said there were "no facts or reports proving any involvement by the Moroccan authorities".

Recent satellite images analysed on Thursday appear to show oil slicks near the Strait of Hormuz, after US strikes on tankers suspected of links to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

An image from the European Copernicus programme taken on Wednesday shows brownish streaks on the surface of the water some 20 kilometres (nearly 12.5 miles) off the Iranian coast, to the east of the strait.

Another Copernicus image of the same location taken on Thursday shows winding streaks of a similar length.

A chilling new documentary about Israel's AI-powered mass killing of civilians in Gaza from two Oscar-winning Israeli filmmakers received a 25-minute ovation at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.

The audience clapped continuously for Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor after the screening, an AFP reporter witnessed, setting what is thought to be a new record in Venice after a 23-minute ovation for another film about Gaza last year.

The leader of the United Arab Emirates was on a state visit to Germany on Thursday that resulted in a promise to invest 40 billion euros ($46.5 billion) into Europe's top economy.

The money would partly pay for data centres with a capacity of up to one gigawatt, Berlin said, and an "Investment Council" would be set up to boost business links between the two nations.

The Gulf is a key source of capital for the AI boom as oil-rich states in the region seek to invest their energy wealth.

Iran is intensifying confrontational actions against the United States in the hope of further raising the cost of the conflict for President Donald Trump less than two months ahead of the US midterm elections, analysts say.

Over half a year after the war erupted on February 28 with US-Israeli attacks that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Iran is upping the ante, even risking a return to all-out fighting, rather than dialling down and looking into diplomacy.

A new documentary from two Oscar-winning Israeli filmmakers provides damning new testimony about AI-enabled mass killings in Gaza from the men and women who took part, the directors told AFP on Thursday ahead of its premiere in Venice. 

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor said they had collected evidence from 24 different Israeli military or intelligence figures who agreed to testify on camera in Tel Aviv as long as their identities were protected.

"We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did," Abraham told AFP. 

Yemen's Houthis seized control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday, with witnesses telling AFP of fighters marching on the area chanting "death to America, death to Israel".

Saudi Arabia meanwhile launched dozens of airstrikes in the last 24 hours, according to the military spokesman for the Houthis, who control large parts of northwest Yemen and launched a large-scale offensive last week against Riyadh-backed Yemeni government forces.

British-led sanctions over settlement expansion in the West Bank may have the unintended effect of emboldening the Israeli right ahead of elections, analysts and a diplomati