U.N. investigators on Tuesday blamed Israel's continued occupation and discrimination against Palestinians for the endless cycles of violence in the decades-long conflict, prompting angry Israeli protests.

Israel's government has failed to pass a bill extending legal protections for settlers in the occupied West Bank, marking a major setback for the fragile coalition that could hasten its demise and send Israel to new elections.

The failure to renew the bill also highlighted the separate legal systems in the West Bank, where nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship while some 3 million Palestinians live under military rule that is now well into its sixth decade. Three major human rights groups have said the situation amounts to apartheid, an allegation Israel rejects as an assault on its legitimacy.

The White House has defended plans for President Joe Biden to meet with Saudi Arabia's crown prince, despite U.S. intelligence determining that he ordered the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Syrian air defiance intercepted Israeli missiles south of Damascus overnight, with no casualties reported, a military source told Syria's official news agency SANA.

Trucks loaded with humanitarian aid queue bumper-to-bumper amid the olive groves at the Turkish-Syrian border, waiting to be allowed across into war-torn Syria.

Inside are baby nappies and blankets, but also 15-kilo (33-pound) bags of flour, bulghur wheat, sugar, chickpeas and peanut-based pastes for children suffering from malnutrition.

Tunisian judges launched a week-long strike Monday in protest at President Kais Saied's "interference" in the judiciary, days after he sacked 57 of their colleagues. 

Saied -- who suspended parliament in a power grab last July -- issued a new decree last week extending his control over the judiciary, his latest move against the only democratic system to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings.

A Kuwaiti supermarket pulled Indian products from its shelves and Iran became the latest Middle Eastern country to summon the Indian ambassador as a row grew on Monday over a ruling party official's remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.

Workers at the Al-Ardiya Co-Operative Society store piled Indian tea and other products into trolleys in a protest against comments denounced as "Islamophobic".

Saudi Arabia has begun compensating residents who lost property to a massive redevelopment project in the coastal city of Jeddah that has spurred rare expressions of public anger, state media said. 

"The delivery of the first batch of compensation for the removed properties has begun," the official Saudi Press Agency said in a report late Sunday, though it did not specify how many people had been compensated so far.

It's not a bomb or a gun or a rocket. The latest threat identified by Israel is the Palestinian flag.

Recent weeks have seen a furor by nationalists over the waving of the red, white, green and black flag by Palestinians in Israel and in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Friday that Israel was prepared to use it's "right to self defense" to stop Iran's nuclear program.

The comments came after IAEA chief Rafael Grossi met Bennett Friday morning during a whirlwind visit.