Ukrainian heavyweight Oleksandr Usyk has drawn on his Cossack heritage as he prepares for his world title clash with towering Briton Anthony Joshua, whose career could face a reckoning on the Red Sea.

Usyk, roared on by millions of war-wracked Ukrainians, is the bookies' favourite for Saturday's clash in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after he dismantled Joshua to snatch his belts in London last year.

In the capital of crisis-torn Iraq, two tent cities have sprung up as rival Shiite blocs have set up protest camps, complete with cooked meals and air-conditioners against the blistering heat.

As the war-scarred country's political impasse has dragged on ever since inconclusive October elections, both sides are digging in for the long haul in and near Baghdad's high-security Green Zone.

Israeli security forces on Thursday raided the offices of multiple Palestinian human rights groups in the occupied West Bank, which the state has branded "terrorist organisations".

The military said soldiers and police officers "closed seven institutions and confiscated property" in the overnight raids.

At the Ramallah offices of human rights group Al Haq, the front door had been welded shut and a Hebrew statement left saying it would remain closed for "security reasons".

Algerian firefighters on Thursday brought under control a string of forest blazes that have killed at least 38 people including 12 who died in a bus trapped by the flames.

Deadly fires have become an annual scourge in Algeria, where climate change has turned large areas of forest into a tinderbox in the blistering summer months.

Authorities have been accused of being ill-prepared, with few firefighting aircraft available despite record casualties in last year's blazes and a cash windfall from gas exports amid soaring global energy prices.

The New Jersey man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie told the New York Post in an interview published Wednesday that he was "surprised" the author had survived the attack.

"When I heard he survived, I was surprised, I guess," Hadi Matar, 24, told the tabloid, which said they held a video interview with the jailed suspect.

Boxer Anthony Joshua declined to comment on human rights in Saudi Arabia as news broke Wednesday that a woman had been jailed for 34 years over her Twitter activity, days before his world heavyweight fight in Jeddah.

Joshua, who has been based in Saudi Arabia ahead of Saturday's unification bout with Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine, said people seemed "cool" in the kingdom and that he preferred to avoid "negative" talk.

The Saudi economy is expected to grow 7.6 percent this year, up from 3.2 percent in 2021, on the back of soaring oil revenues, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.

The government's Vision 2030 reform programme, designed to reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil, has also given the economy a boost as more Saudis join the workforce, particularly women, the IMF said.

Iraq's main political leaders -- but not firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr -- agreed Wednesday to work on a roadmap aimed at ending the country's political impasse, after talks called by the premier.

They also pledged to keep talking, and urged Sadr to join what Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi called the "national dialogue".

Ten months after a general election last October, war-scarred Iraq still has no government, new prime minister or new president, because of disagreement over forming a coalition.

Israel and Turkey announced the resumption of full diplomatic ties on Wednesday, following years of strained relations between the Mediterranean nations.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid hailed the step as an "important asset for regional stability and very important economic news for the citizens" of the Jewish state.

Lapid's office said the decision to resume ties would see ambassadors and consuls general posted to the two countries once more and direct flights restarted.

The governor of Egypt's central bank, Tareq Amer, resigned on Wednesday, state media reported, with the Arab world's most populous country in the grip of a deepening economic crisis.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi accepted the resignation of Amer, who took up his post in 2015 and had been due to stay on until next year, the state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported.

Sisi named Amer a presidential adviser but there was no immediate word on who would replace him at the central bank.