Iraq's prime minister met with Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in the kingdom Sunday as part of Baghdad's efforts to mediate between Riyadh and Tehran.

Mustafa al-Kadhemi, who headed to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, is expected to then visit Iran, its regional rival with which Riyadh has had no diplomatic ties since 2016.

Prince Mohammed and Kadhemi addressed "bilateral relations and opportunities for joint cooperation", reported the official Saudi Press Agency.

While workers laboured on a large construction site in the Gaza Strip, a security guard noticed a strange piece of stone sticking out of the earth.

"I thought it was a tunnel," said Ahmad, the young guard, referring to secret passages dug by the Islamist group Hamas to help it battle Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas and repeatedly ravaged by war, people are more familiar with burying the dead than digging up their heritage.

Like millions of other migrant labourers in the Gulf, one of the world's hottest and driest regions, construction worker B. Sajay does not welcome summer.

"We work in very high temperatures, this is the nature of our work. And yes, we suffer from severe heat," the Indian national told AFP in Muscat, the capital of Oman.

Although summer has only just begun, temperatures have already topped 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in parts of the desert region, which is bearing the brunt of climate change.

The United States has hinted that more Arab nations could take steps to improve ties with Israel, ahead of President Joe Biden's trip to the Middle East.

All eyes are on Saudi Arabia, which Biden will visit in mid-July after he once vowed to treat the kingdom as a "pariah" state over the 2018 murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

However, despite the recent signs of a US-Saudi rapprochement, analysts say it is improbable Riyadh will agree to diplomatic ties with Israel -- not during Biden's visit or while King Salman, 86, still reigns.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi is due to visit Saudi Arabia and Iran "in the next few hours", as part of efforts to mediate between the two countries, a cabinet source said Saturday.

Iraq has over the past year hosted five rounds of talks between the two regional rivals which have had no diplomatic ties since 2016.

After the last round of negotiations in April, Kadhemi said he believed that "reconciliation is near" between Riyadh and Tehran, a further reflection of shifting political alignments across the region.

Egypt's leader on Saturday discussed energy and investment with Qatar's emir, who was in Cairo for the first time since the countries restored relations following a Saudi-led rift.

Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani told President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that his country was keen to "maximise Qatari investments in Egypt and take advantage of the vast investment opportunities available", according to an Egyptian presidency statement.

Talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal will resume within days after being stalled for months, the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell said Saturday during a surprise visit to Tehran.

The negotiations began in Vienna in April last year but hit a snag in March amid differences between Tehran and Washington, notably over a demand by Iran that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from a US terror list.

A ruined village in eastern Afghanistan, just 10 kilometres (six miles) from the epicentre of this week's deadly earthquake, is struggling back to life as aid trickles into the isolated region.

Wuchkai, three hours away from the nearest town of any substance, can only be reached by a narrow, rutted dirt road -- with space for just one vehicle in places.

Isolated, without electricity and water, the village sprawls over a large basin surrounded by imposing hills and bisected by an almost-dry river.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met Iran's top diplomat on Saturday after arriving in Tehran for talks on efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The surprise visit by Borrell, who arrived in the Iranian capital on Friday night, is aimed at getting the talks back on track three months after they stalled amid differences between Iran and the United States.

"Diplomacy is the only way to go back to full implementation of the deal and to reverse current tensions," Borrell tweeted.

The United Nations said Friday it found that Israeli forces fired the shot that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, with Israel swiftly branding the UN's findings unfounded.

The Palestinian-American TV reporter, who was wearing a vest marked "Press" and a helmet, was killed on May 11 while covering an Israeli army operation in Jenin camp in the northern West Bank.

"We find that the shots that killed Abu Akleh came from Israeli security forces," UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.