Israel has eased some restrictions on the Gaza Strip that have threatened a fragile cease-fire, Palestinian officials said. Hamas, however, said the move was really Israel's attempt to pressure the militant group into making concessions.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said 11 truckloads of clothes were exported through Kerem Shalom crossing for the first time in 40 days. On Sunday, Israel said it will allow limited agricultural exports from Gaza.

The Israeli military said it has successfully tested an airborne high-power laser that can shoot down drones, technology it hopes to deploy on a larger scale in the coming years.

Israel already boasts a large and sophisticated air defense system, which the military says had a 90% interception rate against thousands of rockets fired from Gaza during last month's 11-day war. The laser technology would complement that system.

The Palestinian Authority arrested a prominent activist and held him overnight after he criticized its policies in a series of online posts and accused it of arresting another individual for political reasons.

The PA, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has come under intense criticism in recent weeks after canceling the first elections in 15 years and being largely sidelined during last month's 11-day Gaza war.

With the second-biggest bloc in Iraq's parliament, powerful friends in Iran and vast financial assets, the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance has become the predominant force in Iraqi politics, experts say.

Prosecutors have charged four executives at two French companies accused of aiding Libya's former strongman Moamer Kadhafi and Egyptian authorities to spy on opposition figures who were later detained and tortured, a rights group said Tuesday.

Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.

The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month's 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel's new governing coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said talks Monday with U.N. diplomats supporting a fragile month-old ceasefire had gone badly, accusing Israel of a lack of will to end the humanitarian crisis.

Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid will visit the United Arab Emirates, in the first official ministerial visit since the two nations agreed to normalise ties, his office said Monday.

Israel's new premier Naftali Bennett Sunday described the victory of ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi in Iran's presidential election as a "wake up" call for parties to a nuclear deal with Tehran.

Renewed battles between government forces and Huthi rebels over the strategic city of Marib in northern Yemen have left 47 dead, including 16 pro-government forces, military sources said.