The street in front of Saudi Arabia's embassy in Washington was renamed Wednesday for Jamal Khashoggi as activists vowed never to forget the slain journalist despite President Joe Biden's planned visit to the kingdom.

The capital's local government changed signs on one block in front of the imposing embassy to read "Jamal Khashoggi Way" in honor of the Saudi dissident who was strangled to death and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro met Wednesday with Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in the gas-rich Gulf nation, his fifth stop of a regional tour.

The two heads of state discussed "developing relations of friendship and prospects of joint cooperation" between the two countries, the Qatar News Agency said.

The talks focused in particular on "energy, the economy, investment, agriculture and tourism", the agency added.

Israel and Egypt plan to boost gas exports to Europe under an agreement signed during a Cairo visit Wednesday by the European Commission president as the bloc seeks to wean itself off Russian gas.

Ursula von der Leyen also pledged relief worth 100 million euros ($104 million) for food security in Egypt, which has been reeling from grain shortages as a result of the Ukraine war.

Israel and Egypt plan to boost gas exports to Europe under an agreement signed during a Cairo visit Wednesday by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen as the bloc seeks to wean itself off Russian gas.

Von der Leyen also pledged food relief worth 100 million euros ($104 million) for Egypt, which has been reeling from grain shortages as a result of the Ukraine war.

The European Commission president had vowed on Tuesday, during a visit to Israel, to confront Russia for its use of fossil fuels to "blackmail" European countries.

An Israeli court on Wednesday found the former Gaza head of a major US-based NGO guilty of embezzling millions of dollars to Islamist group Hamas, six years after his arrest.

Israel had accused Palestinian Mohammed al-Halabi, who headed Gaza operations for World Vision, of siphoning-off millions of dollars to Hamas, which rules the Palestinian enclave.

He was arrested in June 2016 and indicted in August that year. Israel had refused to release him on bail.

Both Halabi and the charity have staunchly denied any irregularities.

Saudi officials are seizing rainbow-coloured toys and articles of clothing from shops in the capital as part of a crackdown on homosexuality, state media reported.

The conservative kingdom opened up to tourism in 2019 but, like other Gulf countries, regularly attracts scrutiny for its human rights record, including its outlawing of homosexuality, a potential capital offence.

Ministers were frantically haggling through the night into Thursday at the World Trade Organization in a bid to salvage deals on food security, fishing and combating Covid-19.

The global trade body's 164 members added on an extra fifth day of talks to try to break the deadlock gripping the WTO headquarters in Geneva.

But despite relaxing their original Wednesday deadline, countries were trading concessions through the early morning hours to cobble together a wide-ranging set of results.

Four out of five children in Gaza suffer from emotional distress, Save the Children said Wednesday, 15 years after Israel slapped a strict blockade on the Palestinian territory.

Israel imposed the measure in June 2007, as fighters of the Islamist Hamas movement took control of the densely populated enclave. Israel, and Egypt, continue to severely restrict the flow of people and materials in and out.

In a report called "Trapped", Britain-based Save the Children said the mental health of Gazan children has continued to deteriorate.

Five years ago, Iraqi taxi driver Osama Mohammed would make about six trips a day across Baghdad. Today, traffic is so bad he feels lucky to do three.

"The first thing you see in the morning is traffic jams," said 40-year-old Mohammed, describing his "exhaustion" at the stop-and-go traffic he endures across the sprawling capital.

It has become so bad that he now often turns down fares.

"It is better to forget about it because you will spend two hours on the road," he said. "Your day will end in traffic jams."

Noura al-Khalif married an Islamic State group supporter and then wound up without her husband in a Syrian camp viewed by many as the last surviving pocket of the "caliphate".

The 31-year-old woman has been back in her hometown outside the northern city of Raqa for three years but she is struggling to shake off the stigma of having lived in the Al-Hol camp.

"Most of my neighbours call me an IS supporter," she told AFP from her father's house near Raqa, where she now lives with her two children.