Israeli protesters blocked highways and gathered outside Tel Aviv's stock exchange and military headquarters on Tuesday in the latest countrywide demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned judicial overhaul.

The latest "day of disruption" came as longtime allies of the prime minister pushed a contentious piece of legislation through a parliamentary committee ahead of a vote expected next week.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels to Saudi Arabia on Monday in a three-stop tour of Arab Gulf states to seek trade and investment opportunities for Turkey's floundering economy.

Erdogan will arrive in Jeddah accompanied by an entourage of some 200 businesspeople, according to the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey. He is expected to meet King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Business forums have been arranged in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during Erdogan's three-day trip.

A five-story apartment building collapsed Monday in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, leaving at least nine people dead, authorities said, as rescuers searched through the rubble.

Building collapses are common in Egypt, where shoddy construction and a lack of maintenance are widespread in shantytowns, poor city neighborhoods and rural areas.

Iraq's prime minister has held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus during the first trip of its kind to the war-torn country since the 12-year conflict began.

The two leaders told reporters that they discussed fighting drugs, the return of Syrian refugees and the imperative of lifting Western sanctions imposed in Syria. They also talked about Israel's strikes on the war-torn country and water shortages in the Euphrates River that cuts through both countries because of projects in Turkey.

Israel has returned a boat to a Gaza fisherman it had seized for allegedly breaching the limits of the Palestinian enclave's fishing zone, an NGO said, following an Israeli court order.

Israeli authorities had called for the vessel, belonging to fisherman Mohammad al-Hissi, to be permanently confiscated, triggering fears of more such seizures off the Gaza Strip.

Israel's governing coalition pushed ahead on Monday with its contentious plan to overhaul the country's judiciary, despite growing opposition from within the country's military and a wave of mass protests expected this week.

A parliamentary committee was preparing a bill that would limit judicial oversight on some government decisions, legislation that has sparked intensifying criticism from military reservists in elite units, including the air force and cyberwarfare.

A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a car in the occupied West Bank on Sunday wounding three Israelis before fleeing, Israeli authorities said.

The attack was the latest in a relentless cycle of violence that has gripped the region, driving up the death toll and sparking the worst fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still undergoing tests in hospital on Sunday after a dizzy spell but was expected to be released later in the day, his office said.

Netanyahu, 73, was rushed to hospital on Saturday after feeling mild dizziness. His office said test results on Sunday were normal and that Netanyahu was feeling "very good."

The United Nations is concerned about "unacceptable conditions" set by Damascus for allowing aid to flow through its Bab al-Hawa crossing to rebel-held areas in northwest Syria, according to a document reviewed by AFP.

Cyprus police investigations support claims by Israel's Mossad spy service that an Iranian-backed hit squad planned to kill Israelis and other Jews in the east Mediterranean island nation, an official said.

The security official told The Associated Press that Cypriot police had tracked an Iranian national identified as Yusef Shahabazi Abbasalilu following information from "friendly intelligence services."