Gaza residents said Saturday that Israel has eased some border restrictions as part of its truce with the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers, allowing farmers to visit land near its security fence and letting fishermen head further out to sea.

The Egyptian-brokered cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting that claimed 166 Palestinian and six Israeli lives, according to health officials.

Iraq's parliament speaker said Saturday that "significant progress" has been made on resolving an Arab-Kurd crisis, although a deployment of Kurdish forces in the country's north has raised the stakes.

Osama al-Nujaifi has been pushing to resolve a crisis between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq that he has warned could lead to civil war.

Defiant Egyptian judges hit back at President Mohamed Morsi on Saturday, demanding he reverse a decree giving himself sweeping powers that put him beyond judicial oversight and calling for a nationwide strike.

Egypt's Judges Club, a body that represents judges throughout the country, called for "the suspension of work in all courts and prosecution administrations," after several hours of emergency talks in response to what they called Morsi's "ferocious attack on Egyptian justice."

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has congratulated Gaza's Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya in a telephone call on a "great victory" over Israel, the two sides said on Saturday.

Haniya in turn "thanked Iran for its support," they added, days after Tehran confirmed it had supplied military aid to Gaza.

The body of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will be exhumed on Tuesday to undergo poison tests, the head of the Palestinian inquiry team said on Saturday.

"The tomb will be opened on November 27 and experts will take samples the same day within a matter of a few hours," Tawfiq Tirawi told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Nearly a week from regional elections, Algerians are less interested in the public vote than an intensifying behind-the-scenes power struggle — one that is playing out through a flurry of corruption probes.

Though ostensibly a democracy, Algeria is really ruled by a powerful president and a shadowy collection of military generals and intelligence chiefs, making figuring out who has real power a constant preoccupation.

The U.S. said Friday that a proposed conference on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East cannot be convened at this point because of current conditions in the region.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement that the U.S. will continue to work to create conditions that could result in a successful conference. But she cited political turmoil in the region and Iran's defiant stance on nonproliferation.

Anti-riot police fired tear gas on Saturday to disperse protesters camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square as Western governments voiced growing concern over Islamist President Mohamed Morsi's assumption of sweeping powers.

A hard core of opposition activists had spent the night in the iconic protest hub -- epicenter of the popular uprising that toppled veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak last year -- erecting some 30 tents, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi has assumed temporary sweeping powers that supporters say will cut back a turbulent and seemingly endless transition to democracy, but outraged critics say he has now become a dictator.

His mostly liberal opposition, already roiling over an Islamist-dominated constituent assembly preparing a new charter, called for protests after Morsi assumed his new powers in a surprise announcement on Thursday.

The United States said on Friday that the assumption of sweeping powers by Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi was a matter of concern, amid a new round of protests in the country.

"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, in a statement.