Israel's parliament speaker said Monday that a vote to approve a new government that would end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year rule will be held in the coming week, without setting a precise date.

The announcement by Yariv Levin, a close Netanyahu ally, leaves time for the prime minister's efforts to try to peel away supporters from the fragile coalition arrayed against him, which consists of eight parties and has only a narrow majority in Israel's 120-member Knesset, or parliament.

Israeli right-wing groups Monday cancelled plans for a controversial march through annexed east Jerusalem this week, citing police restrictions, as Islamist group Hamas warned the event would spark new violence.

The so-called March of the Flags was due to take place on Thursday and proceed through flashpoint areas of east Jerusalem that have seen repeated clashes recently between Israeli police and Palestinians.

Two members of Libya's security forces were killed and five others wounded Sunday evening in a car bomb blast at a checkpoint in the country's south, a police source said.

Four Jordanian police officers were wounded Saturday night when they clashed with supporters of a lawmaker suspended from parliament for railing against chronic power cuts, the security service said.

Israeli police Sunday arrested a prominent activist at the centre of the movement to publicise the threatened eviction of Palestinians from their homes in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, her family told AFP.

The Iraqi army said Sunday two drones were destroyed above a base housing US troops, one month after the same base was targeted by an armed drone.

Three civilians were killed Saturday in a Turkish drone attack on a refugee camp in northern Iraq in an area Turkish President recently threatened to "clean up," a Kurdish lawmaker said.

The closure of a final humanitarian border crossing into Syrian could cause "senseless cruelty" to millions of Syrians, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Friday, renewing a call for the U.N. Security Council to extend authorization for the delivery of cross-border humanitarian assistance.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the comments at the end of a three-day visit to Turkey, which included a trip to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing — the sole remaining access point for humanitarian aid to enter conflict-ravaged Syria.

Egypt on Friday sent an aid convoy to neighboring Gaza with diggers, trucks and cranes to "prepare the ground for reconstruction" of the bomb-battered Palestinian enclave, the government said.

Hundreds gathered Thursday for the first concert in the Saudi capital since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to watch performances by Syrian diva Assala Nasri and Kuwaiti crooner Nabeel Shuail.

Before stiff rules were brought in a year ago to stem the spread of coronavirus, the ultra-conservative kingdom had started to ease decades-long restrictions on entertainment, as part of efforts to improve its image and attract tourists.