Human Rights Watch on Wednesday said grave abuses were being committed on giant construction sites in Saudi Arabia and warned the risks to migrant workers could increase as the building of stadiums for the 2034 World Cup gathers pace.

HRW said "scores of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia die in gruesome yet avoidable workplace-related accidents, including falling from buildings, electrocution, and even decapitation".

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would lift sanctions on Syria to offer it a chance for "greatness" after Bashar al-Assad's fall, as he cast himself as a peacemaker in the Middle East.

On a state visit to Saudi Arabia primarily aimed at securing billions of dollars of investment, the billionaire president took aim both at the US left and right who he said had intervened in the region in the guise of "nation builders" but "wrecked far more nations than they built".

Gaza rescuers said Israeli strikes close to a hospital in the Palestinian territory killed at least 28 people Tuesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the military would enter Gaza "with full force" in the coming days.

The release of 21-year-old Israeli-American Edan Alexander, who had been in Hamas captivity since their October 2023 attack on Israel, offered a brief pause in the fighting on Monday.

But the strikes resumed amid fierce new criticism of Israel's tactics in the war.

The US Senate's top Democrat announced Tuesday he would hold up all Justice Department political appointees in protest over President Donald Trump's acceptance of a $400 million luxury plane as a gift from Qatar.

The Gulf state's royal family has offered to donate a 747-8 jumbo jet as Trump awaits the delayed delivery of two new presidential planes from Boeing.

But the move raises huge constitutional and ethical questions -- as well as security concerns about using an aircraft donated by a foreign power for use as the ultra-sensitive Air Force One.

Rights groups and NGOs took the UK government to court on Tuesday accusing it of breaching international law by supplying fighter jet parts to Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Supported by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and others, the Palestinian rights association Al-Haq is seeking to stop the government's export of UK-made components for Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.

A months-long Israeli blockade is worsening acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, medical charity Medecins du Monde warned on Tuesday, accusing Israel of using hunger as "a weapon of war".

Israel halted all aid from entering the war-ravaged Palestinian territory on March 2, days before resuming its offensive triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday promised billions of dollars in deals with the United States from defence to artificial intelligence as it threw a lavish welcome for President Donald Trump on the first state visit of his second term.

Trump returned the favour by lavishing praise on the kingdom's crown prince and moving on a key Saudi policy request by announcing a lifting of sanctions on Syria.

It is arguably the world's most iconic plane, an instantly recognizable symbol of the US presidency.

But now Air Force One -- like many other American institutions once considered sacred -- is getting the Donald Trump treatment.

- A name, not a plane -

Technically Air Force One is the callsign for whichever US Air Force plane, no matter how small, is carrying the US president.

The Cannes film festival kicked off Tuesday with a highly political ceremony that included a tribute to a slain Palestinian photojournalist from Juliette Binoche and a fresh attack on US President Donald Trump from Robert De Niro.

Binoche, who heads this year's Cannes jury that will award the Palme d'Or top prize, lamented the death of Gaza photographer Fatima Hassouna to the star-studded audience.

Hassouna, 25, was killed in an Israeli air strike last month along with her family, a day after a documentary about her was selected to premiere at Cannes.

US President Donald Trump on Monday angrily dismissed concerns over his plans to receive a jet from Qatar to be used as Air Force One, saying it would be "stupid" not to accept such a gift.

The offer from Qatar's royal family to donate the $400 million 747-8 to be used as the US presidential plane raised major questions about ethics and security, but Trump played them down.

"It's a great gesture," the 78-year-old billionaire told reporters at the White House when asked if the oil-rich Gulf state would expect anything in exchange.