Saudi Arabia has required would-be hajj pilgrims from many Western countries to apply for visas via a government portal online, a move intended to crack down on "fake" travel agencies, officials told AFP on Monday.

The new system was put in place as the kingdom prepares to welcome 850,000 Muslims from abroad for the annual hajj after two years during which pilgrims not already in Saudi Arabia were barred because of Covid pandemic restrictions.

Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday urged citizens in Turkey to leave "as soon as possible" over threats that Iranian operatives are actively planning attacks on Israelis in Istanbul.

The stark warning comes amid the latest surge in tensions between bitter rivals Iran and Israel, with Tehran blaming the Jewish state for a series of attacks on its nuclear and military infrastructure, inside Iran but also inside Syria.

Lapid made no mention of any alleged Israeli operations against Iranian targets.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi landed in Israel on Monday as the EU seeks to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel imports.

Both leaders were due to hold energy talks in Israel, which has turned from a natural gas importer into an exporter in recent years because of major offshore finds.

Von der Leyen was to meet Foreign Minister Yair Lapid later Monday and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday, with talks expected to focus "in particular on energy cooperation", a commission statement said.

Iraq temporarily closed Baghdad airport Monday as choking clouds of dust blanketed the capital, the latest crippling sandstorm in a country that has warned climate change poses an "existential threat".

It was the tenth such storm since mid-April to hit Iraq, which has been battered by intense droughts, soil degradation, high temperatures and low rainfall linked to climate change.

Iraqi lawmakers from firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's bloc resigned Sunday, the parliamentary speaker said, in a move ostensibly designed to up pressure to end an eight-month political paralysis.

Sadr on Thursday had urged the MPs from his bloc -- the biggest in parliament -- to ready resignation papers, in a bid, he said, to break the parliamentary logjam and create space for the establishment of a new government.

The International Atomic Energy Agency on Sunday urged Iran to resume talks "now" to avoid a crisis that could make it "extremely more difficult" to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord.

Iran this week disconnected some cameras allowing international inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities in response to a Western resolution passed June 8 in which the UN agency denounced Tehran's lack of cooperation.

Twenty-seven surveillance cameras "have been removed," IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in an interview broadcast Sunday by CNN, calling it a "very serious move."

TotalEnergies chief Patrick Pouyanne hailed a deal to expand production in the world's biggest natural gas field in Qatar but told AFP on Sunday that more projects are needed and consumers will still have to "turn down the heating" to ease the growing price crisis.

The chairman and chief executive of the French multinational that is one of the world's most powerful energy companies said putting two billion dollars into a joint venture with Qatar Energy was the company's response to doubts expressed after it ended investment in Russia.

Qatar on Sunday named France's TotalEnergies as its first foreign partner to expand the world's largest natural gas field and eventually help ease Europe's energy fears.

The French energy major will spend an estimated $2 billion for a 6.25-percent share of the giant North Field East project that will help Qatar increase its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by more than 60 percent by 2027, TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne told AFP.

Qatar on Sunday named France's TotalEnergies as its first foreign partner to develop the world's largest natural gas field and eventually help ease Europe's energy fears.

The French energy major will have a 6.25-percent share of the giant North Field East project that will help Qatar increase its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by more than 60 percent by 2027, Qatar's Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi told a news conference.

Kaabi said it was "a marriage more than an engagement" as the accord will last until 2054.

Saudi Arabia on Sunday pledged $10 million to help prevent an ageing Yemeni oil tanker from unleashing a potentially catastrophic spill in the Red Sea bordering its waters.

The decaying 45-year-old oil tanker known as the FSO Safer, long used as a floating storage platform and now abandoned off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida, has not been serviced since Yemen was plunged into civil war.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after Huthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa the previous year.