The Jewish Agency said Monday that more than 5,000 Ukrainians have inquired about moving to Israel after Russia launched an invasion of their country.

The agency, created in 1929 before Israel was established, processes Israeli immigration for Jews in the diaspora.

A spokeswoman told AFP that the agency has set up a hotline following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last week to assist Jews wanting to immigrate.

So far there have been more than 5,000 requests, she said.

Iraq and the United Arab Emirates will play their 2022 World Cup qualifier in Baghdad after FIFA lifted its years-long ban on matches in the war-scarred country, Iraqi officials said Sunday.

The match scheduled for March 24 was to be played in Amman, Jordan, or Qatar, because world football's governing body FIFA had forbidden matches in Iraq over security concerns.

"We received on Sunday an official notification from FIFA confirming the lifting of the ban for all Iraqi stadiums," Ahmed al-Moussaoui, spokesman for the Iraqi Football Association, told AFP.

The embattled Israeli spytech firm NSO Group filed Sunday a defamation lawsuit against a newspaper that reported its Pegasus software had been used by police against dozens of prominent Israelis.

The reports by the business daily Calcalist triggered public outrage in Israel, with the government promising answers and President Isaac Herzog saying the alleged police misconduct put the country's democratic foundations at risk.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held a phone call Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the conflict in Ukraine, the premier's office said, following reports Kyiv has asked Israel to mediate.

"Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin this afternoon. The two discussed the situation between Russia and Ukraine," Bennett's office said in a brief statement.

In the breakaway statelet of northern Cyprus, people are grappling with a perfect economic storm -- spiking global commodity prices, hobbled tourism and, above all, the fallout from Turkey's financial crisis.

"Everything has become more expensive -- bread, milk, water, electricity bills," sighed Mehmet Cobe, a tailor in the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

Iran's chief negotiator will fly back to Vienna on Sunday evening following consultations in Tehran, state media said, as talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal reached a critical stage.

Ali Bagheri "will return to Vienna this evening with clear instructions to pursue the negotiations with the aim of solving problems in order to reach an agreement", IRNA news agency reported.

In a busy district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, there is little to distinguish the faded brick building, except for a Hebrew inscription above the entrance.

Iraq's Jewish community was once one of the largest in the Middle East but its members have dwindled to a handful, outside of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

"Our heritage is in a pitiful condition" and authorities take no notice, said a member of the congregation who requested anonymity, fearing reprisals.

Turkey must keep insisting on justice for slain Riyadh critic Jamal Khashoggi even as ties with Saudi Arabia improve, his Turkish fiancee told AFP in an interview.

The grisly 2018 killing of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul worsened already rocky relations between the two Sunni regional powers and rivals, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

"I think Turkey must somehow continue its insistence (for justice) even if it improves its relations," Hatice Cengiz said after attending another hearing in the case at Istanbul's main court this week.

Thousands of young Arabs who took up studies in Ukraine, often fleeing violence back home, are appealing to be rescued from a new nightmare -- Russia's full scale invasion of the country.

More than 10,000 Arab students attend university in Ukraine, drawn to the former Soviet republic by a low cost of living and, for many, the lure of relative safety compared with their own troubled homelands.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine could mean less bread on the table in Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world where millions already struggle to survive.

The region is heavily dependent on wheat supplies from the two countries which are now at war, and any shortages of the staple food have potential to bring unrest.

If those supplies are disrupted, "the Ukraine crisis could trigger renewed protests and instability" in several Middle East and North Africa countries, the Washington-based Middle East Institute said.