Human Rights Watch charged Monday that new Israeli rules for foreigners entering the West Bank risked turning the occupied territory into "another Gaza," cutting residents off from the outside world.

The regulations, which have faced waves of condemnation from the European Union and United States, have also been clouded by uncertainty.

Israeli has said the rules, which came into force in October, are aimed at clarifying the procedures surrounding West Bank entry and are being implemented on a two-year trial basis.

The Lebanese judge investigating the deadly 2020 Beirut port blast has resumed his work, a judicial official said Monday, after a 13-month suspension due to political pressure.

The probe into the cause of the August 4, 2020 blast, one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions, had been stalled since December 2021 as a series of complaints against the judge obstructed his work.

No state official has yet been held accountable over the explosion, which killed more than 215 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.

Movies by and about Iranian women took center stage at the Sundance film festival this weekend, as diaspora filmmakers reflected on female-led protests and the deadly challenges of censorship and resistance in their ancestral home.

"Joonam," a documentary about a three-generation family of Iranian women now living in Vermont, and "The Persian Version," a colorful but candid dramedy which hops between Iran and New York over several decades, received world premieres on Saturday.

Hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday urged Belgium to push harder to secure the release of aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, held by Iran in a case decried as "hostage diplomacy".

The crowd, gathered in freezing temperatures in central Brussels, chanted "Free Olivier" and sang Happy Birthday to mark Vandecasteele's 42nd birthday this week.

"The aim is to show the government that we cannot leave an innocent person there," his sister Nathalie told AFP.

Major Arab states boycotted a ministerial meeting hosted by Libya's interim government on Sunday, with just five of the Arab League's 22 members sending their top diplomats and even the bloc's secretary general staying away.

The snub underlines Arab divisions over the Tripoli-based government, whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration in the war-scarred country's east.

Regional heavyweights Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were not represented at all at the gathering -- a preparatory session ahead of a foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed Sunday a top minister in line with a Supreme Court ruling against Aryeh Deri's appointment which has shaken the nascent cabinet.

Leader of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish party Shas, Deri played a pivotal role in Netanyahu's return to power following Israel's November 1 elections.

The premier appointed him health and interior minister last month, but on Wednesday the Supreme Court said Netanyahu "must remove Deri from his position" due to a recent tax evasion conviction.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday set the tackling of galloping inflation and currency devaluation as priorities for the 2023-2024 budget presented to parliament.

The pledge came as the rial touched a new low.

Addressing MPs, Raisi tried to reassure Iranians over the economy which faces a serious crisis due primarily to US sanctions, mainly on oil exports. These were reimposed after Washington's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

Iran on Sunday warned the European Union it would take "reciprocal" measures after the European Parliament voted to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.

"The parliament is working to place elements of European countries' armies on the terrorist list" of the Islamic republic, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter.

Members of the European Parliament voted on Wednesday to include the Guards on the 27-nation bloc's terror list in "light of its terrorist activity, the repression of protesters and its supplying of drones to Russia".

A building collapsed Sunday in Syria's war-damaged second city of Aleppo, killing 16 people including children, with the search for survivors extending into the night.

Much of Aleppo was destroyed during Syria's conflict that began nearly 12 years ago and left many of the remaining structures in a decrepit state.

"The number of victims of the residential building collapse... has risen to 16 dead," said state news agency SANA. A war monitor said they were Syrians who had been displaced during the war.

Despite a slackening of street activity in the face of a brutal crackdown, Iranian protesters are still challenging the Islamic regime four months into their movement, observers say.

There have been fewer daily street protests nationwide since November as the authorities seek to quell the protests with methods including capital punishment, which has already seen four protest-related executions.

But the anger unleashed by the death in mid-September of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for violating the Islamic republic's strict dress rules, has not subsided.