Iraq's average daily oil exports since the beginning of August are the highest since the outbreak of the Middle East war between Iran and the United States, which has choked off the Strait of Hormuz, the oil ministry said Friday.

Iraqi Oil Minister Bassem Mohammed Khudair told a press conference that "exports since the beginning of the month have reached a rate of two million barrels" per day, for a total of around 26 million barrels, saying the daily rate was achieved "for the first time since the crisis began".

France on Friday called on Israel to arrest and prosecute rogue settlers blockading Palestinian homes at Qusra in the occupied West Bank and to protect the civilian population.

"France strongly condemns the occupation of several Palestinian homes in the village of Qusra in the West Bank by Israeli settlers, as well as the acts of violence committed against Palestinian civilians," the foreign ministry said.

The top U.S. priority now in the Iran war is no longer its nuclear program but to bring gasoline prices down for American consumers, the vice president said Thursday, with the treasury secretary adding that new economic punishment to wear down Tehran is imminent.

The comments by Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent illustrate the powerful leverage Tehran has gained by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.

The United Arab Emirates on Friday blamed Iran for attacks on two vessels linked to its state-owned oil company as they passed through the Strait of Hormuz a day earlier.

Iran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait, frequently attacking commercial ships, and wants to charge users for passage, which the U.S. fiercely opposes.

Lebanon has formally abolished the death penalty, going against the grain in a region where Iran and Saudi Arabia are reportedly the second- and third-biggest executors globally, after China.

Here's a look at which countries in the Middle East and North Africa top the list of executioners, which have a moratorium on applying the death penalty, and whether others might follow Lebanon's example.

Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations to keep an international force in Lebanon after its peacekeepers' mandate ends this year.

The peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, has roughly 7,500 personnel from nearly 50 countries, and has been in place since 1978.

More than 30 nations, including France, Britain and Canada, have condemned Iran's use of capital punishment, saying in a joint statement on Wednesday the Islamic republic was executing protesters to "silence dissent".

Russia and Ukraine swapped bodies of killed soldiers on Thursday, in one of the few areas of cooperation between the warring sides.

European stocks mostly rose Thursday as investors welcomed news of easing U.S. inflation, while oil prices fell back from recent gains amid uncertainty over the prospects for the Strait of Hormuz.

London's stock market, however, fell as shares in heavyweight mining companies retreated after copper giant Antofagasta downgraded its production outlook.

Libya has, within the span of a single day, had a senior intelligence official killed in a car bomb in the east and suffered drone attacks on a major oil refinery near Tripoli in the west.