Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still undergoing tests in hospital on Sunday after a dizzy spell but was expected to be released later in the day, his office said.

Netanyahu, 73, was rushed to hospital on Saturday after feeling mild dizziness. His office said test results on Sunday were normal and that Netanyahu was feeling "very good."

The United Nations is concerned about "unacceptable conditions" set by Damascus for allowing aid to flow through its Bab al-Hawa crossing to rebel-held areas in northwest Syria, according to a document reviewed by AFP.

Cyprus police investigations support claims by Israel's Mossad spy service that an Iranian-backed hit squad planned to kill Israelis and other Jews in the east Mediterranean island nation, an official said.

The security official told The Associated Press that Cypriot police had tracked an Iranian national identified as Yusef Shahabazi Abbasalilu following information from "friendly intelligence services."

The United Nations mission in Libya has expressed its concern over "continued abductions, arbitrary arrests, and disappearances of citizens and public figures by various security actors" in the war-ravaged country.

Among those who have gone missing is Faraj Abderrahmane Boumtari, a former finance minister.

Israel's defense minister has visited Azerbaijan, seeking to strengthen ties between countries with shared opposition to Iran.

Defense Minster Yoav Gallant and Azerbaijani officials agreed to work together to deter threats from Iran, the Israeli Defense Ministry said. Israel views Iran as its archenemy, while Azerbaijan, which borders Iran to the north, also has a rocky relationship with Iran.

The Syrian government gave a green light Thursday for the United Nations to use a key crossing from Turkey to the country's rebel-held northwest that was closed earlier this week, but it wants to take away U.N. control over aid deliveries to the region.

Syria's U.N. ambassador, Bassam Sabbagh, said the government is granting the U.N. and its agencies "permission" to use the Bab al-Hawa crossing for six months starting Thursday, but he said it must be done "in full cooperation and coordination with the government."

Iraqi officials have defended a deal inked this week to barter oil for gas with Iran, saying that the deal does not violate U.S. sanctions on Tehran and that it will help alleviate a worsening electricity crisis in Iraq.

The remarks come as the government in Baghdad struggles to maintain a balance between its two key allies, Washington and Tehran. A previous arrangement in which Iraq was buying gas from Iran and paying dollars for it was held up because Washington declined to approve sanctions waivers. That in turn led Iran to cut the gas supply, triggering severe power shortages in Iraq.

Thousands of protesters have gathered outside the main U.S. diplomatic office in Tel Aviv, calling upon the U.S. to condemn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the country's judiciary.

The gathering came days after President Joe Biden called members of Netanyahu's far-right government "extreme" and said that supporters of Israel's West Bank settlements were "part of the problem."

Mohammed Hamid Nour is only 23, but he is already nostalgic for how Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes once were before drought dried them up, decimating his herd of water buffaloes.

Even at their centre in Chibayish, only a few expanses of the ancient waterways -- home to a Marsh Arab culture that goes back millennia -- survive, linked by channels that snake through the reeds.

As much of the world swelters in record temperatures, spare a thought for Issam Genedi, who ekes out a living washing cars in one of the planet's hottest regions, the Gulf.

Pausing from his work at an outdoor carpark in Dubai, the Egyptian migrant says the United Arab Emirates' furnace-like summer feels even hotter this year.