Former Israeli top legal officials spoke out Thursday against sweeping reforms to the country's justice system planned by the new conservative government, lending their voices to a growing outcry against the proposed overhaul.

Seven former attorneys general who have served in the post throughout the last five decades — including two appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose justice minister is spearheading the reforms — signed a letter of protest, along with four other former senior legal officials. The letter, published in Israeli media, denounced the proposed changes, saying they are destructive to the country's legal system.

The Israeli military shot and killed a Palestinian man early Thursday during a raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest bloodshed in months of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

The military, which has been carrying out nightly raids in the territory since early last year, said soldiers operating in the Qalandiya refugee camp were being struck by rocks and cement blocks from rooftops above and responded with live fire. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man killed as Samir Aslan, 41.

The United Arab Emirates on Thursday named a veteran technocrat with experience in both renewable energies and the oil business to be the president of the upcoming United Nations climate negotiations in Dubai, highlighting the balancing act ahead for this crude-producing nation.

Authorities nominated Sultan al-Jaber, a trusted confidant of UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who now serves as CEO of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. That firm pumps some 4 million barrels of crude a day and hopes to expand to 5 million daily.

The Egyptian pound was trading Wednesday at half its value from March after the central bank intervened for a third time as part of an International Monetary Fund loan agreement.

The devaluation, representing a drop of around 50 percent against the dollar over the 10-month period, comes as the price of imported food and other goods is soaring in the country of 104 million.

The United Arab Emirates has announced a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags to take effect next year, the latest initiative aimed at reducing pollution in the oil-rich nation.

The law would prohibit the import, production and circulation of such bags from Jan. 1, 2024, according to an announcement carried by the state-run WAM news agency.

Weapons supplied by the United Kingdom and the United States and used by a Saudi-led coalition fighting in war-torn Yemen killed at least 87 civilians and wounded 136 others in just over a year, a new report said Wednesday.

The report by the Oxfam charity found that the Saudi-led coalition used weapons supplied solely by the U.K. and the U.S. in hundreds of attacks on civilians in Yemen between January 2021 to the end of February 2022. Britain is the second-biggest supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia, after the U.S.

Iran has protested to Iraq over the use of the name "Arabian Gulf" for a regional football competition held in the neighboring country, state media reported Wednesday.

The Islamic republic insists the body of water should be called the "Persian Gulf" and has repeatedly raised the issue with countries and organisations that refer to it otherwise.

The U.S. Navy seized over 2,100 assault rifles from a ship in the Gulf of Oman it believes came from Iran and were bound for Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, a Navy spokesman said Tuesday. It was the latest capture of weapons allegedly heading to the Arab world's poorest country.

The seizure last Friday happened after a team from the USS Chinook, a Cyclone-class coastal patrol boat, boarded a traditional wooden sailing vessel known as a dhow. They discovered the Kalashnikov-style rifles individually wrapped in green tarps aboard the ship, said Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet.

Israel's parliament started voting overnight on reviving a law which gives settlers in the occupied West Bank access to civilian law, while their Palestinian neighbours face military courts.

The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously to keep a key border crossing from Turkey to Syria's rebel-held northwest open for critical aid deliveries for another six months. Syria's ally Russia — in a surprise move — supported the resolution.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said after the vote that cross-border aid remains "an indispensable lifeline for 4.1 million people in northwest Syria."