Israel's army said Monday that if an Israeli soldier fired the bullet that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, it did not appear that the soldier was guilty of criminal misconduct.

"Given that Ms Abu Akleh was killed in the midst of an active combat zone, there can be no immediate suspicion of criminal activity absent further evidence," it said in a statement citing Military Advocate Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

An Iranian director, who unsettled Cannes with a film about a serial killer "cleansing" the holy city of Mashhad of prostitutes, on Monday criticised the way women are represented in Iranian films.

Ali Abbasi, whose film "Holy Spider" is in the race for the Palme d'Or at the French Riviera film fest, said any serious movie that manages to get made in the Islamic Republic "is a miracle".

But the country's film-makers "have been presenting a parallel reality of Iran in the past 50 years", he told reporters.

Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily shut airports Monday as another sandstorm -- the ninth since mid-April -- hit the country.

More than 1,000 people were hospitalised across the nation with respiratory problems, health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr told AFP.

Flights were also grounded in neighbouring Kuwait for a second time this month, as the region grapples with the increasingly frequent weather phenomenon.

Tunisia's powerful UGTT trade union confederation said Monday it would not take part in a national dialogue proposed by President Kais Saied, arguing that it excludes key actors and civil society.

Saied sacked the government last July before dissolving parliament and seizing control of the judiciary, in moves opponents called a coup against the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings.

The president has excluded political parties from any dialogue, despite domestic and overseas calls for a more inclusive process.

Greece said on Monday it had prevented around 600 migrants from crossing the Aegean Sea into its territorial waters from neighbouring Turkey, in the largest attempted entry this year.

A spokesman for the Greek coastguard said five sail boats and four dinghies had set off from the Turkish coast early in the morning.

"Greek patrol vessels were able to quickly locate the vessels and inform the Turkish coastguard," the spokesman told AFP.

A coastguard statement said its boats had used "visual and sound signals" to keep the asylum seekers out of Greek territorial waters.

At least six people died and dozens were injured or missing under rubble after an unfinished high-rise building collapsed in southwestern Iran, officials said.

More than 30 people were pulled out alive from the debris, but some 50 more are feared still trapped, with locals calling it a "day of mourning".

Choking white dust swirled from where the tower-block had stood, covering surrounding vehicles, as shocked onlookers stared at the wreckage in horror, some screaming.

A woman who was just 12 when she survived the 2009 Yemenia Airways crash in the Comoros islands that killed all 152 others onboard described Monday the terrifying moments leading up to her plunge into the ocean and subsequent miraculous rescue, in the French trial against the airline.

Bahia Bakari, now 25, has sat through several hearings with her father but had not testified or spoken to journalists attending the trial that opened this month.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Oman on Monday as the two countries signed a string of trade deals and as international talks on Tehran's nuclear programme hang in the balance, leaving the Islamic republic under sanctions.

Raisi, on his second Gulf visit since taking office in August, was greeted by Sultan Haitham bin Tareq at the airport and received a 21-gun salute at the royal palace, an Omani statement said.

Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily shut airports Monday as another sandstorm -- the ninth since mid-April -- hit the country, authorities said.

The capital Baghdad was enveloped in a giant dust cloud that left usually traffic-choked streets largely deserted, an AFP correspondent said.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi ordered all work to cease in public institutions, with the exception of health facilities and security agencies.

He cited "poor climatic conditions and the arrival of violent sandstorms" in a statement issued by his office.

Iran will avenge the killing of a Revolutionary Guards colonel who was shot dead in Tehran, President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Monday.

Assailants on motorcycles on Sunday hit Colonel Sayyad Khodai with five bullets as he sat in his car outside his home.

Iran blamed "elements linked to the global arrogance" -- the Islamic republic's term for its arch enemy the United States and US allies including Israel.

It was the most high-profile killing inside Iran since the November 2020 murder of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.