The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the Government of Germany through KfW Development Bank have signed agreements in support of Palestine refugees in Gaza and Lebanon, amounting to a total of EUR 25 million.

The additional funding will build on previous German-supported efforts in the reconstruction of the Nahr el-Bared Camp in Lebanon after its destruction as the result of clashes in 2007 and where approximately 20,900 people are still expected to return to. "The EUR 10 million contribution will enable approximately 192 families to return to 269 residential units," UNRWA said in a press release, adding that "business owners will re-open their shops in 31 newly reconstructed retail units."

Libya's top electoral body has disqualified the son and onetime heir apparent of the late dictator Moammar Gadhafi from running for president in elections to be held next month, citing his previous convictions.

The name of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi appeared on a list of ineligible candidates issued by the country's High National Elections Committee. He can appeal the decision in court in the coming days.

The United Nations' top envoy for Libya is resigning weeks ahead of presidential elections seen as critical to the country's stability after nearly a decade of chaos, the world body said.

Jan Kubis decided to step down after just 10 months in the job. With the presidential vote set for Dec. 24, the U.N. is "working as quickly as possible to ensure continuity of leadership," spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news briefing at U.N. headquarters.

Security forces in Qatar detained two journalists from Norwegian state television for over 30 hours and deleted footage they gathered at a migrant labor camp as they tried to report on worker issues ahead of the FIFA 2022 World Cup, authorities said Wednesday.

Qatar's government later accused NRK journalists Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani of "trespassing on private property and filming without a permit" as the two returned early Wednesday to Norway following their arrest. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre responded by saying their arrest was "unacceptable."

The smuggler had said the car would come in 10 minutes, but Zaid Ramadan had been waiting in the dense forest straddling the Poland-Belarus border for three hours, desperate for signs of headlights in the mist — and a new life in Europe.

His pregnant wife Delin shivered under a blanket. She had been against leaving their life in Dohuk, a mountainous province in the northern Kurdish-run region of Iraq. The journey was perilous, expensive and the change too drastic, she told him.

A Polish imam has recited prayers over the tiny white casket of an unborn Iraqi boy, the latest life claimed as migrants from the Middle East have tried to slip into the European Union illegally and found their path blocked by soldiers in the forests of Poland and Belarus.

After the first snow of the season fell overnight, Aleksander Ali Bazarewicz, the imam, waited in hopes that the child's father — in a refugee center and with his wife hospitalized in serious condition — would arrive. When he didn't appear, Bazarewicz lead the funeral rites in front of an old wooden mosque and later at the graveside.

Israel and Morocco signed a landmark agreement Wednesday that lays the foundation for security cooperation, intelligence sharing, and future arms sales.

The memorandum of understanding is the centerpiece of a visit this week by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to Morocco, which established formal relations with Israel last year as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is hosting Abu Dhabi's powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Wednesday, as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates seek to repair their tense relations and increase economic cooperation.

The visit by the crown prince, seen as the de-facto leader and the force behind the UAE's foreign policy posture, is his first official trip to Turkey since 2012, and the highest-level visit by a Emirati official since relations hit a low over a series of regional tensions. The UAE national security advisor, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, visited Turkey in August to prepare for the prince's visit.

Syria's military said Israeli warplanes attacked army positions in the country's central region early Wednesday, leaving two civilians dead and seven people wounded — six of them soldiers.

State media quoted an unnamed military official as saying the warplanes fired missiles while flying over the airspace of neighboring Lebanon. State news agency SANA quoted the official as saying that the strike occurred at 1:26 a.m. (2326 GMT).

Dr. Arsalan Azzaddin was seeing migrants from Iraq and Syria being brought into a hospital in eastern Poland every day with hypothermia, pneumonia, broken bones and severe dehydration. So he asked a Kurdish TV channel to let him go on the news to warn people in his homeland not to attempt the dangerous journey into the European Union through the Belarus-Poland border.

"I want them not to come. They could die," Azzaddin told The Associated Press.