Israel's Antiquities Authority displayed Wednesday a rare papyrus note in ancient Hebrew dating back 2,700 years, recently brought back to Jerusalem after its chance discovery in the United States.

The letter fragment, written in the Palaeo-Hebrew used during the First Temple era, constitutes four lines beginning "To Ishmael send", with the rest of the words incomplete.

"We don’t know exactly what was being sent and to where," said Joe Uziel, director of the antiquities authority's Judaean Desert scrolls unit.

The killing of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics prompted Israel to turn to a strategy which endures to this day: deploying secret operatives abroad to assassinate its enemies.

Ever since the Mossad intelligence service embarked on its Operation "Wrath of God" to hunt down senior militants it blamed for the Munich bloodbath, it has covertly targeted Israel's enemies overseas.

Half a century ago next week, Palestinian gunmen from the Black September militant group broke into the Olympic village and stormed the quarters of the Israeli athletes and their coaches.

In Israel's Negev desert, winemakers are sharing their knowledge of growing vines in the blistering heat with European producers also facing fierce temperatures this summer.

Walking between rows of ripe grapes growing from the scorched land, David Pinto enthuses about how his vineyard has come of age in the past three years.

"We're masters of the conditions, without depending on the whims of the weather," said Pinto, whose estate near the town of Yeruham carries his name.

More frequent and intense heatwaves and wildfires driven by climate change are expected to worsen the quality of the air we breathe, harming human health and ecosystems, the UN warned Wednesday.

A new report from the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) cautioned that the interaction between pollution and climate change would impact hundreds of millions of people over the coming century, and urged action to rein in the harm.

The family of a US citizen detained for nearly seven years in Tehran pleaded Tuesday for his furlough to be with his father, who it said needs a new, urgent surgery and cannot leave Iran.

Baquer Namazi, 85, requires surgery within weeks to clear life-threatening blockages in his left carotid artery, which supplies blood to the brain, the family said.

He underwent a similar operation in October last year for blockages on the right artery, with Iran declining appeals to let him return to the United States for the treatment.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp on Tuesday, retracing the footsteps of his father who helped liberate the site as a British army officer in 1945.

Recounting Chaim Herzog's first moments at the camp -- Isaac's father and former Israeli president -- the leader said he "stood on a wooden box, shouting in Yiddish before hundreds of skeletons".

"'Jews! There are still living Jews!" Herzog recalled his father saying.

Twenty-one separatist fighters and six members of Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch were killed Tuesday as an attack by the jihadists punctured months of relative peace in the war-torn country, government and security sources said.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) attacked positions held by the United Arab Emirates-trained Security Belt group in Abyan province in Yemen's south, the sources told AFP.

The violence came just days after the jihadist group released a video of a United Nations worker whom it abducted in the same province more than six months ago.

A bitter showdown between Morocco and its arch-rival Algeria over the disputed Western Sahara territory is causing diplomatic rifts with other nations and even risks sparking a full-blown conflict, analysts say.

"We're seeing a diplomatic war, where both sides are resorting to anything short of open conflict," said Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director at think-tank the International Crisis Group.

Western Sahara, a Spanish colony until 1975, is mostly desert but boasts immense phosphate resources and rich Atlantic fishing grounds.

Iran's Lake Urmia will dry out completely if rescue efforts are not prioritised over the needs of farmers in the drought gripping the region, an environment official said Tuesday.

The warning comes just four years after a Japanese government-funded programme had raised hopes of stabilising what was once the Middle East's largest lake and turning around one of the worst ecological disasters of recent decades.

A Palestinian was killed and 16 wounded Tuesday when Israeli troops entered Jenin in the occupied West Bank to carry out a home demolition, the Palestinian health ministry said.

"The outcome of the Israeli aggression on Jenin at dawn today: a 29-year-old martyr and 16 wounded with bullets and shrapnel were admitted to hospitals," the ministry said.

Palestinian official news agency Wafa identified the dead man as Mohammed Musa Mohammed Sabaaneh, 29.

Sabaaneh's father, Musa Sabaaneh told AFP that a soldier "inside a jeep fired a bullet" at his son.