Israel's attorney general has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he must fire a key Cabinet ally, in a letter made public Thursday, following a Supreme Court ruling that disqualified him from serving as a government minister.

The letter, sent shortly after Wednesday's court decision, compounds the pressure on Netanyahu to remove Aryeh Deri from the Cabinet and potentially destabilize his coalition government. The letter by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is also likely to exacerbate a dispute over the power of the judicial system and the government's bid to overhaul it.

A stampede outside a stadium in southern Iraq killed at least two people and injured dozens Thursday, a health official said.

The deadly incident happened as spectators gathered to attend the final match in the first international soccer tournament held in the country in four decades. The Iraqi News Agency said one person was killed and 60 people who were injured outside the Basra International Stadium some of whom are in critical condition.

Israel's U.N. ambassador has accused the Palestinians of stabbing a knife into any chance for reconciliation by seeking an advisory opinion from the U.N.'s highest court on Israel's decades-old occupation — and the Palestinian U.N. envoy accused Israel's new government of seeking to crush its people.

The always contentious monthly U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was even more vitriolic and threatening this week, and U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland warned that "a dangerous cycle of violence persists on the ground, amidst increased political tension and a stalled peace process."

Two Palestinians were killed by gunfire early Thursday during an Israeli army raid in the flashpoint West Bank city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The ministry said Jawad Farid Bawaqna, 62, was killed by a bullet to the chest, while Adham Mohammed Bassem Jabareen, 28, was hit in the upper abdomen by Israeli fire.

An Arab-Israeli jailed for killing an Israeli soldier was released on Thursday after serving 40 years, officials said, with Israel warning it would not tolerate celebrations glorifying "terror". 

Maher Younis was released from Beersheba prison in southern Israel, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said. 

Saudi Arabia is working to reduce its reliance on oil exports, Economy Minister Faisal Al-Ibrahim said Wednesday, as the Middle East powerhouse sent one of the largest delegations to the Davos summit to make its case.

Despite its goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2060, the country remains hugely dependent on crude oil exports that have powered its growth for decades, raising doubts about its potential for an economic makeover any time soon.

Jordan has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Amman to protest a move by Israeli police to block the Jordanian envoy from entering a volatile holy site in Jerusalem. The incident quickly escalated tensions between the neighbors and reflected the heightened sensitivity around the sacred compound under Israel's new ultranationalist government.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Israel, Ghassan Majali, was blocked from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, the third-holiest site in Islam. The site, sitting on a sprawling plateau also home to the iconic golden Dome of the Rock, is revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.

European Union lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on a candidate to replace a disgraced former parliament vice president, after a key suspect in the cash-for-influence corruption scandal rocking the assembly made a plea bargain with prosecutors, raising the prospect that more names might surface.

Former parliament vice president Eva Kaili was removed from her post after she was taken into custody early last month facing charges of corruption, money laundering and membership of a criminal organization.

The rising cost of purchasing or leasing a vessel that can hold more than 1 million barrels of crude oil now in a rusting old tanker off the coast of war-torn Yemen is the latest obstacle to resolving the grave threat of massive environmental damage from a possible oil spill or explosion, the U.N. said Tuesday.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the availability of very large crude oil tankers "has decreased in the past six months, basically due to events having to do with the war in Ukraine."

On New Year's Eve, a small boat carrying more than 230 would-be migrants, most of them Syrians, broke down and began to sink after setting sail from the northern coast of Lebanon.

Since the collapse of Lebanon's economy in 2019, an increasing number of people -- mostly Syrian and Palestinian refugees but also Lebanese citizens -- have tried to leave the country and reach Europe by sea. The attempts often turn deadly.