Israel's parliament advanced a bill Wednesday that would enable lawmakers to overturn a Supreme Court decision with a simple majority, a law that critics say would severely erode the country's democratic checks and balances.

The "Supreme Court override" bill's approval in a preliminary vote in the Knesset was the latest step by Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition toward realizing the judicial overhaul that is steaming ahead despite calls for dialogue and consensus from American Jews and Israel's president, and weekly protest by tens of thousands of Israelis.

Iran's top diplomat Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held talks with neighboring ally Iraq Wednesday to discuss stalled talks with arch-rival Saudi Arabia to ease regional tensions, as well as on border security.

Iraq has taken a key role as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia since 2021, after Riyadh broke off diplomatic relations in 2016, but efforts have been deadlocked for several months.

A prominent rights group accused Tunisian President Kais Saied of "racism and hate speech" on Wednesday after he vowed to crack down on sub-Saharan African migrants.

Saied, who has seized almost total power since a dramatic July 2021 move against parliament, had urged his national security council to take "urgent measures" to tackle an influx of migrants.

Israeli troops on Wednesday entered a major Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank in a rare, daytime arrest operation, triggering fighting that killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded scores of others.

The raid, which reduced a building to rubble and left a series of shops riddled with bullets, was one of the bloodiest battles in nearly a year of fighting. A 72-year-old man was among the 10 killed and 102 people were wounded, Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli military said it has sentenced a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group to 22 months in prison after his arrest helped spark three days of heavy fighting in Gaza last year.

Bassam al-Saadi's sentence was handed down as part of a plea deal that included suspending an additional sentence and ordering al-Saadi to pay compensation, the army said in a statement. Al-Saadi he had been convicted for illegal association, incitement and impersonation.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to step into a legal fight over state laws that require contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel.

The justices rejected an appeal on behalf of an alternative weekly newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that objected to a state law that reduces fees paid to contractors that refuse to sign the pledge.

Human Rights Watch called Tuesday on tech companies to better protect LGBTQ communities from "digital targeting" by authorities in Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.

Syrian President Bashar Assad visited the Gulf nation of Oman on Monday on his first official visit since the deadly Feb. 6 earthquake, his office said.

Oman is one of a few Arab countries that kept normal relations with Damascus after Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 over its crackdown on Arab Spring protests.

Israel's president on Tuesday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition to seek dialogue and compromise after it pushed ahead with controversial judicial overhaul in a turbulent parliamentary session overnight.

Isaac Herzog said it was a "difficult morning" following the late night parliamentary vote that saw two contentious pieces of legislation — part of sweeping changes that have prompted vocal criticism in Israel and abroad — pass a preliminary hurdle.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government on Tuesday for the first time advanced a plan to overhaul Israel's legal system, defying a mass uproar among Israelis and calls for restraint from the United States.

The vote marked only preliminary approval for the plan. But it raised the stakes in a political battle that drew tens of thousands of protesters into the streets, sparked criticism from influential sectors of society and widened the rifts in an already polarized Israel.