Thousands gathered to mourn a slain Al Jazeera journalist in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, as the head of the Palestinian Authority blamed Israel for her death and rejected Israeli calls for a joint investigation.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American reporter who covered the Mideast conflict for more than 25 years, was shot dead Wednesday during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin. Journalists who were with her, including one who was shot and wounded, said Israeli forces fired upon them even though they were clearly identifiable as reporters.

Israel on Thursday approved the construction of more than 4,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli rights group said.

It's the biggest advancement of settlement projects since the Biden administration took office. The U.S. opposes settlement construction and views it as an obstacle to any eventual peace deal with the Palestinians. Most of the international community views the settlements as illegal.

Iraq has agreed to pay $1.6 billion in debt to Iran by June 1 to secure a steady gas supply for power generation through the summer, its electricity minister said.

Chronic underinvestment through decades of war and sanctions has left Iraq dependent on imports from its eastern neighbor for a third of its gas needs.

Qatar's emir arrived in Iran on Thursday for talks with the Iranian president, state media reported, as efforts to save Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers hit a deadlock.

State TV showed the arrival of Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, where he was received by Iran's senior vice president Mohammad Mokhber. The report said said bilateral, regional and international issues are on agenda during the visit.

An Al Jazeera correspondent who was shot dead on Wednesday during an Israeli raid in the West Bank was a highly respected journalist in the Middle East whose unflinching coverage was known to millions of viewers.

News of Shireen Abu Akleh's death reverberated across the region. The 51-year-old journalist became a household name synonymous with Al Jazeera's coverage of life under occupation during her more than two decades reporting in the Palestinian territories, including during the second intifada, or uprising, that killed thousands on both sides, most of them Palestinians.

The U.S. envoy to the U.N. on Wednesday said the killing of Palestinian-American Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she covered an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank must be "investigated transparently."

"We're encouraging both sides to participate in that investigation so that we can get down to why this happened," U.S. ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that Washington's "highest priority is protection of American citizens and the protection of journalists."

A British national accused by Iraq of collecting small archaeological fragments will be tried next week on charges potentially punishable by death, his Baghdad lawyer said Wednesday.

Retired geologist Jim Fitton, 66, was arrested in March at the Baghdad airport after Iraqi customs officials found him in possession of pottery fragments taken from an ancient site in southern Iraq. A German citizen accompanying him was also charged, but details of his case have not been made public.

The United Nations was seeking $144 million on Wednesday needed to fund the salvage operation of a decaying tanker full of oil moored off the coast of Yemen, a ship whose demise could cause an environmental disaster.

The amount includes $80 million to transfer the more than 1 million barrels of crude oil the FSO Safer is carrying to storage, said David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

Members of the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group gathered in Morocco on Wednesday to discuss the campaign, a reminder of the persistent threat from the extremist group despite the overwhelming preoccupation with Russia's war on Ukraine.

U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland co-chaired with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita the annual meeting of senior officials from the 8-year-old, 83-member bloc. The group aims to reaffirm their shared determination to continue fighting IS.

A key Israeli governing partner said Wednesday it was remaining in the country's fragile coalition, averting another crisis for the embattled government.

Mansour Abbas, the head of the Islamist Arab Ra'am party, said he would continue his party's membership in the coalition after suspending it following tensions at a key Jerusalem holy site in recent weeks.