Jailed French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal arrived in Germany for medical treatment on Wednesday after Algiers agreed to a German request that he be pardoned.

A spokeswoman for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who on Monday had urged Algeria to free the 81-year-old given his "fragile health condition", confirmed to AFP that Sansal had landed in Germany and was being taken straight to hospital.

Earlier Steinmeier had thanked Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune for the "humanitarian gesture".

According to his family Sansal has prostate cancer.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) -Fourteen-year-old Mohammed Wael Helles has been waiting for surgery on a serious spinal injury caused by an Israeli airstrike for nearly two months, one of thousands of Gazans waiting for urgent treatment in Gaza's battered health system.

Helles was a top student with aspirations of becoming a doctor when he was wounded weeks before a ceasefire that paused two years of warfare. The attack, which killed the driver of his vehicle, tore his spinal cord and fractured three vertebrae.

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran is grappling with its worst water crisis in decades, with officials warning that Tehran — a city of more than 10 million — may soon be uninhabitable if the drought gripping the country continues.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has cautioned that if rainfall does not arrive by December, the government must start rationing water in Tehran.

"Even if we do ration and it still does not rain, then we will have no water at all. They (citizens) have to evacuate Tehran," Pezeshkian said on November 6.

Syrian authorities have temporarily closed the national museum in Damascus and launched an investigation after thieves made off with several pieces, an official told AFP on Wednesday.

The robbery took place overnight Sunday to Monday in the so-called classical wing of the facility, which was spared during Syria's civil war between 2011 and late last year and which houses priceless artefacts dating back to antiquity.

When engineer Tarek Mazraani started campaigning for the reconstruction of war-battered southern Lebanon, Israeli drones hovered ominously overhead -- their loudspeakers sometimes calling him out by name.

Despite a ceasefire struck last November aiming to put an end to more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah, Israel has kept up near-daily strikes on Lebanon.

In addition to hitting alleged militants, it has recently also targeted bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses, often saying they were part of efforts to restore Hezbollah infrastructure.

Incumbent Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani claimed victory for his coalition on Wednesday in Iraq's general election after preliminary results showed it had secured a decisive lead.

Supporters of Sudani, who is vying for a second term, flocked late in the evening to Tahrir Square in Baghdad to celebrate with fireworks and music, according to AFP correspondents.

Casting the victory as one for all Iraqis in a televised speech, Sudani congratulated the country "on your coalition winning first place in the parliamentary elections".

A Danish court put two Swedish teenagers on trial on terrorism charges for having thrown two hand grenades at the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen last year.

The two men, aged 18 and 21, have also been charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder.

"My client pleads not guilty to the charge of terrorism," Jakob Buch-Jepsen, the lawyer for the 18-year-old, told the court. The defendant pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated assault.

ROME (Reuters) -Millions more people risk famine in at least a dozen crisis spots around the world, including Sudan and Gaza, two U.N. agencies warned on Wednesday, appealing for funds to address a shortfall amid global cuts to international aid.

In a joint report, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization also listed Haiti, Mali, South Sudan and Yemen as countries facing "an imminent risk of catastrophic hunger", meaning famine.

(Reuters) -Israeli President Isaac Herzog received a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump, urging him to consider granting a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president's office said on Wednesday.

"While I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli Justice System, and its requirements, I believe that this 'case' against Bibi, who has fought alongside me for a long time, including against the very tough adversary of Israel, Iran, is a political, unjustified prosecution," the letter says.

(Reuters) -Israel’s defense minister said on Wednesday he planned to close publicly funded Army Radio in what he described as an attempt to preserve the military’s nonpartisan character, but the decision was denounced by the station's chief as a blow to press freedom.

The minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement he would soon submit a proposal to the country's right-wing government to close the station, which is editorially independent, and he expected it to end its broadcasts by March 1.