A 15-year-old Iranian girl died last week after being beaten during a raid by the security forces on her school, a teachers' union said, urging the authorities to stop killing "innocent" protesters.

Asra Panahi died on October 13, after "plainclothes officers attacked" Shahed High School in the northwestern city of Ardabil, the Co-ordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates said.

The pupils had been taken into town for an "ideological event" at a spot known to be a centre for protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death in the custody of Iran's notorious morality police.

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis has signed a licensing agreement increasing access to a vital leukaemia treatment, a UN-backed public health organisation said Thursday, marking the first-ever such agreement for a cancer drug.

The deal will give selected manufacturers the opportunity to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of nilotinib, a twice-daily oral medication used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

Flashmob-style protests, images beamed onto tower blocks, water fountains dyed blood-red: young Iranians armed with little more than their phones have adopted a slew of tactics to give demonstrations over Mahsa Amini's death staying power.

The protest movement is showing it can go the distance more than one month after it sprung up, in spite of a crackdown by the security forces that has cost at least 122 lives.

Two years since Israeli soldier Amit Ben Ygal -- an only child -- died in service, his father has not given up hope of becoming a grandfather.

For now posthumous in vitro fertilisation (IVF) rights are reserved only for the widows of fallen soldiers in Israel.

But a draft law seeks to expand such rights to their parents, with an activist insisting Israel has a "moral obligation" to families whose children died in service.

The European Union on Wednesday readied new sanctions on Iran over its supply of drones to Russia as the UN Security Council met on the unmanned attacks that have caused destruction in Ukraine.

The United States, France and Britain requested the closed-door Security Council discussion to voice alarm over the drone shipments, which Western officials say violate a UN resolution, although Russia holds veto power to block any new sanctions bid.

A Palestinian on the run after perpetrating a deadly attack against Israeli forces was killed Wednesday in the occupied West Bank after he shot at Israelis on the edge of a settlement, officials said.

The alleged attacker, identified by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid as Udai Tamimi, had been sought by Israeli security forces since the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Israeli soldier earlier this month at a checkpoint at the entrance to the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem.

Kyiv accused Russia of planning to destroy a hydroelectric dam in the eastern Kherson region, where Ukrainian soldiers have been steadily advancing and Moscow-installed authorities have begun evacuations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces had mined the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant with the intent of blowing it up, in what would amount to a "catastrophe on a grand scale".

At least 15 people have been killed in the latest outbreak of ethnic clashes after land disputes in Sudan's southern Blue Nile state, local leaders and medical sources said Wednesday.

Fighting broke out last week after reported arguments over land between members of the Hausa people and rival groups in Wad al-Mahi, near Roseires in Sudan's troubled southern region, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of the capital Khartoum.

On Wednesday, fresh fighting erupted, with residents reporting intense gunfire and homes torched.

Russia on Wednesday warned the United Nations not to probe alleged strikes by Iranian-made drones in Ukraine, joining Tehran in denying the weapons' origin as the European Union prepared new sanctions.

The United States, France and Britain called a closed-door Security Council meeting on the alleged sale of drones to Russia, which they described as a violation of UN arms restrictions on Iran.

When Islamic State group fighters bulldozed the ancient monumental Mashki gate in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2016, it was part of the extremists' systematic destruction of cultural heritage.

Now, US and Iraqi archaeologists working to reconstruct the site have unearthed extraordinary 2,700-year-old rock carvings among the ruins.

They include eight finely made marble bas-relief carvings depicting war scenes from the rule of the Assyrian kings in the ancient city of Nineveh, a local Iraqi official said Wednesday.