Denmark on Sunday confirmed that one of its nationals was shot and wounded in the Saudi Arabian capital and said it was assisting the victim's relatives.

"We can confirm that a Danish citizen has been shot. We're giving consular help to the family," a Danish foreign ministry official told AFP.

Israel's government Sunday endorsed a proposal to anchor in law the country's status as the “national homeland of the Jewish people,” drawing fire from critics who said it weakened democracy.

"The cabinet today approved a draft basic law: 'Israel the national state of the Jewish people" said a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, one of whose MPs was a sponsor.

An Iraqi court sentenced former Sunni MP Ahmed al-Alwani to death Sunday for murder, a spokesman said, a verdict that could damage Baghdad's relationship with a powerful tribe battling jihadists.

Alwani is a member of the Albu Alwan tribe, members of which are fighting against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in the Ramadi area of Anbar province, a key front in the war against IS which has seized key parts of Iraq since June.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian farmer near the border in northern Gaza on Sunday in the first deadly shooting since an August truce ended a 50-day war, medics said.

Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra identified the dead man as Fadel Mohammed Halawa, 32, saying the bullet had hit him in the back.

Some 220 Syrian migrants crammed onto a fishing boat were rescued off the northern coast of Cyprus on Sunday as the vessel hit rough seas in the Mediterranean, authorities said.

Turkish Cypriot authorities were able to rescue the passengers including a number of children in an operation lasting several hours in bad weather, local police said in a statement.

Suspected Jewish extremists firebombed a house in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank early on Sunday, its mayor told AFP, pointing the finger of blame at local settlers.

"At 4:00 am (0200 GMT), settlers came and threw molotov cocktails at a house which partly burned down," said Masud Abu Mura, mayor of Khirbet Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.

Controversy clouded Sunday Bahrain's first election since Sunni authorities crushed protests led by the Gulf monarchy's Shiite majority, with the opposition mocking government boasts of more than 50 percent turnout.

The focus was on turnout, a key marker of the poll's validity after an opposition boycott, and the count was still underway after Saturday's election to a 40-member parliament.

A sliver of Aleppo's once famous nightlife has returned to the war-torn Syrian city, with cafes and singers catering to residents of regime-held districts, and even some heavily bombed rebel areas.

In the chic Mogambo neighborhood in the divided city's government-controlled west, Jalaa and her three friends eat ice cream at the Fayrouz cafe, their gossip interspersed with peals of laughter.

A memorial service was held Saturday for British aid volunteer Alan Henning, who was beheaded by Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

His widow Barbara told the private service at Eccles Parish Church in Manchester, northwest England, that the 47-year-old taxi driver was a "selfless and caring" man. They had a son and daughter.

A Danish citizen was shot and wounded in the Saudi capital on Saturday, police said, but there was no immediate word on the motive for the rare attack.

The shooting occurred at 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) when the Danish man was driving away from his work at a company in Riyadh's Kharj Road area, police said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.