The United Nations Friday cautioned that millions of people displaced by conflicts and persecution in the Middle East risk "extreme hardship" as winter approaches.

UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said there was a dire need for more funds to support many displaced people at a time when the coming northern hemisphere winter is expected to be "far more challenging than in recent years". 

The speaker of Tunisia's dissolved parliament and arch-rival of President Kais Saied appeared in court on Thursday as part of a case involving money-laundering and "incitement to violence".

Three years ago, Fadel Abbas marched with tens of thousands of fellow Iraqis chanting for the "fall of the regime" in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, meaning "liberation" in Arabic.

Saudi Arabia has released an American woman it took into custody early this week after she tweeted and otherwise spoke out about her efforts to leave the country with her young Saudi-American daughter, according to a U.S. official and a U.S.-based advocacy group.

Carly Morris was released early Wednesday, after being summoned and taken into custody by Saudi authorities in the north-central city of Buraidah on Monday, according to the Freedom Initiative. The Washington-based group advocates for prisoners it deems wrongfully detained in the Middle East.

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive an official mandate on Sunday to form a new government, Israel's presidency said, following the completion of consultations with lawmakers.

Qatar may hope soccer fans ignore politics at the first World Cup in the Middle East. But Israel and Iran, foes locked in conflicts across the region, are bringing sensitive flashpoints to the tournament's doorstep.

Israel is not competing, but it sees the massive spectacle as a way to further integrate into the Middle East after establishing ties with two of Qatar's Gulf Arab neighbors. Thousands of Israeli tourists, long shunned, are expected to fly to the Qatari capital of Doha on unprecedented direct flights.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced Wednesday that he has submitted new applications for arrest warrants stemming from his investigations of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya.

Karim Khan told the U.N. Security Council in the first briefing by an ICC prosecutor from Libyan soil that the applications were submitted confidentially to the court's independent judges, who will determine whether to issue arrest warrants. Therefore, he said, he couldn't provide further details.

Egyptian prison authorities have intervened medically with imprisoned pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who this week escalated his hunger strike and stopped drinking water, his family said Thursday, demanding his release. The drama surrounding his fate is coinciding with Egypt's hosting of the U.N. climate summit.

With the family scrambling for details on Abdel-Fattah's condition, officials at the prison refused to allow a lawyer for the family to visit him, despite approval by the prosecutors' office for the visit. The laywer, Khaled Ali, said Interior Ministry officials told him the approval was not valid because it was dated Wednesday, adding in a tweet that he was only notified of the approval on Thursday morning.

Drinks are on the house at this year's U.N. climate talks and the price of food will be slashed, Egypt's foreign minister said Thursday following complaints from delegates that they were struggling to get food and water during the event.

But on another issue that threatened to overshadow this year's meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh — the imprisonment of a prominent Egyptian pro-democracy campaigner, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry indicated no shift in position by the government.

It was a crime that convulsed Jerusalem.

On a fall day seven years ago, 13-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Manasra and his 15-year-old cousin tore through the streets of a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, armed with knives. His cousin, Hassan, critically wounded a 13-year-old Israeli boy who was leaving a candy store and stabbed another Israeli man. He was shot dead by police. Ahmad was run over by a car, beaten and jeered by Israeli passers-by.