An embarrassing slip of the tongue by former US president George W. Bush may have drawn laughter from his American audience, but it raised the ire of Iraqis.

In a speech Wednesday evening in Dallas about Russia's war on Ukraine, Bush called the invasion of Iraq, which he himself ordered, "unjustified and brutal" -- before quickly correcting himself.

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and ushered in one of the bloodiest periods in the country's modern history, marked by sectarian warfare and the rise of jihadists.

An Iranian-Swedish citizen facing imminent execution in Iran is being held as a hostage by Tehran in a bid to force Belgium and Sweden to make concessions in two cases concerning former Iranian officials, Amnesty International said Thursday.

Ahmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges that are deemed baseless by Stockholm and his supporters, and Iranian media reports say he could be hanged by May 21, a punishment that officials have repeatedly insisted will be carried out.

Hamas supporters celebrated Thursday a landslide student election win at a top West Bank university, results experts said further point to the Islamists' growing support in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Hamas's Al Wafaa' Islamic bloc won 28 of the 51 seats on the student council at Birzeit University, marking the first time Islamist-aligned candidates have gained control of the body.

The bloc aligned with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' secular Fatah movement won just 18 seats.

Israel on Thursday confirmed the arrest of one of the pallbearers of slain Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, as the army said the investigation into her killing remained "ongoing".

Abu Akleh was shot dead during an Israeli army raid in the West Bank last week.

Palestinians and the TV network said Israeli troops killed her, while Israel said she may have been killed by Palestinian gunfire or a stray shot from an Israeli soldier.

When Firas Hamdan was injured at a protest near Lebanon's parliament two years ago, the then activist never imagined he would one day return as a lawmaker.

Hamdan, one of 13 independent politicians who emerged from a mass anti-government protest movement in 2019, made it to parliament on a reformist platform at elections on Sunday.

The 35-year-old lawyer and another independent, Elias Jarade, both snatched seats from allies of the powerful Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah in one of its south Lebanon strongholds -- a first in three decades.

Conflicts and natural disasters forced tens of millions to flee within their own country last year, pushing the number of internally displaced people to a record high, monitors said Thursday.

Some 59.1 million people were registered as internally displaced worldwide in 2021 -- an all-time record expected to be broken again this year amid mass displacement inside war-torn Ukraine.

The head of Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah called Wednesday on parliamentary factions to cooperate, following elections that saw no bloc achieve a majority and the representation of independent lawmakers rise.

Nobody "can claim that the majority belongs to this or that group," said Hassan Nasrallah, acknowledging for the first time that his organisation and its allies lost their overall parliamentary majority in Sunday's poll.

An independent United Nations expert said Wednesday that the impact of sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran was "devastating", describing them as illegal and urging they be lifted.

"During our visit, we were able to identify (the) devastating humanitarian impact of sanctions," said Alena Douhan, the UN special rapporteur focused on the impact of unilateral sanctions.

Hundreds of Jewish worshippers flocked to Africa's oldest synagogue in Tunisia on Wednesday, reviving an annual pilgrimage after a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pilgrims passed through airport-style scanners and passed a heavy, armed police guard to enter the whitewashed Ghriba synagogue on the southern Tunisian resort island of Djerba.

Inside, they lit candles, prayed and handed each other sweets and nuts.

Many took photos and filmed relatives and friends inside the intricately decorated synagogue.

Hezbollah's opponents might rejoice at their loss of majority in parliament but Lebanon's packed political calendar now sets the stage for protracted deadlocks at best or violence at worst.

Sunday's polls passed without any major incident, in itself an achievement in a country which has a history of political violence and is suffering its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.