An ultra-Orthodox Jewish party long aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu declined on Thursday to recommend him to stay as Israel's prime minister, as signs grew that rival Gadi Eisenkot will have the first chance to form a government.

President Isaac Herzog was holding a second day of consultations with political parties after the October 27 election, in which neither Netanyahu -- a polarizing right-winger who has led Israel through three years of war -- nor Eisenkot secured enough votes for a majority.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the Iran war "must end" and suggested his party's incoming majority in Congress could use their control over government funding to press for that goal.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that the Iran war had doomed Republicans in the midterm elections, moving to distance himself from the unpopular conflict ahead of a possible 2028 White House run.

Dozens of visitors have begun flocking to a new museum opened by Iraq's Jewish community, the first of its kind, amid ongoing efforts by the minority to preserve its heritage.

The Red Cross on Wednesday urged leaders heading to the United Nations climate conference in Turkey to rapidly scale up investment in protecting vulnerable populations against humanitarian impacts brought by a warming planet.

The parliament in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region elected a speaker on Wednesday, more than two years after elections were held, with the chamber still riven by party divisions.

Israel's president on Wednesday urged political leaders to compromise in forming a government after an election he said had no clear winner and condemned "racist" rhetoric against Arab parties.

Hours after U.S. voters stripped President Donald Trump's Republicans of control of Congress, partly over the Iran war, thousands gathered Wednesday outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran for an annual anti-American rally.

Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said Wednesday that anyone expecting a shift in U.S. policy was "seriously mistaken", hours after midterm elections dealt a blow to President Donald Trump.

"Those who still harbor even the slightest hope that the behavior of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts, or who imagine that making concessions to the United States can dissuade it from hostility towards the Iranian nation, are seriously mistaken," Khamenei said in a written statement published on his website.

Prime minister Nawaf Salam warned on Wednesday against plunging the country into a new war if the Middle East conflict resumes, in an apparent message to Hezbollah.

"Faced with the risks of renewed war in the region, I renew my warning of the dangers of dragging Lebanon into a new senseless adventure in service of outside interests," Salam said.