Eight truffle-hunters were killed and more than 30 injured in eastern Syria when the vehicle they were travelling in hit a landmine, a war monitor said Thursday.

"Eight citizens were killed and at least 35 wounded when a landmine... exploded as they were travelling to look for truffles on the outskirts of Deir Ezzor," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

State news agency SANA blamed Islamic State group jihadists for planting the mine.

Controversial legal reforms being debated in Israel's parliament have sparked fears in the high-tech and financial sectors that foreign investors will be scared off in a blow to growth prospects.

The new legislation has been spearheaded by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took office in December and is regarded as the most right-wing in Israeli history.

It aims to curtail the powers of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges.

A British warship intercepted a boat smuggling Iranian weapons, including anti-tank missiles, off the coast of Oman in a joint operation with US forces last week, officials said Thursday.

The small craft, travelling at "high speed" after dark in international waters, was initially spotted by US aerial surveillance, the British embassy in the United Arab Emirates said.

The boat, travelling south from Iran, was intercepted by forces from British frigate HMS Lancaster before it could navigate back to Iranian territorial waters on February 23.

"Listen to this! One. Two. Three!" Down the crackling phone line from the women's wing of Tehran's Evin prison, a chorus of prisoners then launch into raucous song.

It's a Persian rendition of the Italian protest song "Bella Ciao".

"All for one and one for all!" they sing, laughing in shared defiance in support of the "Woman, life, freedom" protests that have shaken Iran's clerical authorities for five months.

Internet privacy company Proton can spot attacks on democracy in a country before they hit the headlines, simply by watching demand for its services explode, its chief told AFP.

When Russia blocked access to independent news sites following its invasion of Ukraine a year ago, the small company which provides virtual private networks (VPNs) saw "a 9,000 percent increase in sign-ups over just a period of a few days", company chief executive Andy Yen said in an interview last week.

Israeli forces killed Wednesday a Palestinian man during a raid in the occupied West Bank following the fatal shooting of an Israeli-American motorist earlier this week, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli army said soldiers fired at two people who tried to flee after they entered the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp near Jericho to arrest suspects in the Monday shooting attack in the same area.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on Thursday to the International Space Station carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and the second Emirati to voyage to space.

The SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 mission launched at 12:34 am (0534 GMT) Thursday from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a livestream of the launch showed.

The launch had been scrubbed on Monday just minutes before liftoff because of a clog in a filter that supplies ignition fluid to start the rocket engines.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Wednesday urged Iran's president to "immediately" set free an aid worker held by Tehran in a case denounced as hostage diplomacy.

Iran arrested Olivier Vandecasteele, 42, in February 2022 and sentenced him at the start of this year to more than 12 years behind bars for "espionage" as well as ordering him to be subjected to 74 lashes.

"My message was very clear: Olivier Vandecasteele is an innocent man and must be released immediately," De Croo tweeted after a phone call with Iran's Ebrahim Raisi.

Supermarkets in Lebanon started pricing items in US dollars on Wednesday instead of the nose-diving local currency, after a government announcement allowing the practice in a country heavily reliant on imports.

Since late 2019, Lebanon has been facing a dramatic economic crisis that has seen poverty rates climb to reach more than 80 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.

The local currency, now officially pegged at 15,000 to the greenback, was trading Wednesday at almost 90,000 to the dollar, compared to 60,000 in late January.

Israeli police clashed Wednesday with protesters rallying against the government's judicial reform programme which critics say threatens democracy, as lawmakers held a preliminary vote on the latest controversial bill.

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv blocked some streets, and police employed stun grenades, water cannon and officers on horseback in a rare use of force in the coastal city, AFP journalists said.

Some 39 people were arrested for "allegedly rioting and not obeying instructions by police officials", police said in a statement.