Acclaimed Tel Aviv-based TV screenwriter Hagai Levi says many artists like him want to leave Israel because of the Gaza war, with a gathering cultural boycott of the country adding to their problems.

Levi, writer of a string of TV hits including "Scenes from a Marriage", "The Affair" and "In Treatment", is an outspoken critic of Israel's siege of Gaza and understands international anger over the issue.

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan will not recognise a Palestinian state for the time being, and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will skip a relevant meeting during the United Nations General Assembly this month, the Asahi newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed government sources.

Japan's stance would run counter to moves to recognise a Palestinian state by France, Britain and Canada - its Group of Seven peers - as well as Australia. The stance aligns Japan with the United States, Israel's closest ally, which has rejected the idea of recognising a Palestinian state.

ADEN (Reuters) -The United Nations has relocated the place of appointment of the resident coordinator for Yemen to Aden, more than a week after at least 18 U.N. personnel were detained in the capital Sanaa.

The resident coordinator's office for Yemen said on Tuesday that the office location was changed to Aden, but that the resident coordinator would continue to fulfill his mandate across the country.

"The Resident Coordinator maintains a presence in Sanaa and he will be traveling across the country, including to Sanaa," the office said.

(Reuters) -European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said on Tuesday that she had a call with U.S. President Donald Trump on strengthening joint efforts to increase economic pressure on Russia through additional measures.

Von der Leyen said in an X post that the commission will propose speeding up the phase-out of Russian fossil imports.

"Russia's war economy, sustained by revenues from fossil fuels, is financing the bloodshed in Ukraine," she added.

(Reporting by Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Syria said on Tuesday that it was working with the United States to reach mutual "security understandings" with Israel, which has demanded the demilitarisation of the country's south.

The announcement was part of a US- and Jordan-backed roadmap for restoring stability in the south following sectarian violence that drew Israeli intervention, and a Syrian military official told AFP that heavy weapons had been withdrawn from the area.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. has issued a fresh round Iran-related sanctions targeting individuals and entities that Washington says finance Tehran's military, including some in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Tuesday.

Those targeted have helped coordinate funds transfers, including from the sale of Iranian oil, that benefit Iran's military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC)- Quds Force and its Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), Treasury said.

United Nations investigators on Tuesday accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza in a bid to "destroy the Palestinians", accusing Israel's prime minister and other top officials of incitement.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the world body, found that "genocide is occurring in Gaza", commission chief Navi Pillay told AFP.

"The responsibility lies with the State of Israel."

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Under U.S. pressure, Syria is accelerating talks with Israel for a security pact that Damascus hopes will reverse Israel's recent seizures of its land but that would fall far short of a full peace treaty, sources briefed on the talks said.

Washington is pushing for enough progress to be made by the time world leaders gather in New York for the U.N. General Assembly at the end of this month to allow President Donald Trump to announce a breakthrough, four of the sources told Reuters.

France on Tuesday repatriated three women and 10 children from Syrian camps housing alleged jihadists, anti-terror prosecutors said, in the first such operation in two years.

Repatriation is a deeply sensitive issue in France, which has been a target of Islamists over the past decade, notably in 2015, when jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers staged the worst attack on Paris since World War II, killing 130 people.

As drones buzzed overhead in the morning sun, Palestinians gently lifted from the rubble a blanket holding a body, the latest casualty of Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza City.

The devastating scene is a familiar one in the Gaza Strip's main urban hub, where Israel has carried out intensifying strikes in the runup to the ground assault it launched on Tuesday.

Overnight bombing reduced a residential block in the north of the city to mounds of rubble. One man squeezed his head and hand beneath a concrete slab in a desperate search for survivors.