A group of candidates in war-torn Libya's presidential election said Monday that they expect the polls to be delayed, despite the lack of an official announcement to that effect.

Scheduled for Friday, the vote is meant to cap a United Nations-led peace process after a decade of conflict.

Egypt on Monday sentenced one of the country's most prominent activists to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news, a defense lawyer said. The activist's former attorney and another activist were sentenced in the same case, each to four years.

Alaa Abdel-Fattah was first sentenced in 2014 on charges of taking part in an unauthorized protest and allegedly assaulting a police officer. He was released in 2019 after serving a five-year term but was rearrested again later that year, in a crackdown that followed anti-government protests.

Stormy weather has prompted Egyptian authorities to suspend classes Monday in the capital of Cairo and a handful of other provinces as a precautionary measure.

Authorities also closed the ports in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the Suez Canal cities of Port Said and Suez.

Each month, hundreds of trucks heavy with fuel, cement and other goods cross a plowed no man's land between Egypt and the Gaza Strip — and Hamas becomes stronger.

Hamas collects tens of millions of dollars a month in taxes and customs at the crossing in the border town of Rafah, according to estimates. The funds help it operate a government and powerful armed wing while international aid covers most of the basic needs of Gaza's 2 million residents.

Iran's ambassador flew out of the rebel-held Yemeni capital to receive Covid treatment in a rare exemption from an air blockade enforced by a Saudi-led coalition, Saudi and Iranian officials said.

Two rockets struck Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. embassy, causing property damage but no casualties, Iraq's military said early Sunday.

One rocket was destroyed by the embassy's C-RAM defense system. Another fell near a national monument, causing damage to two civilian vehicles, the statement said. An investigation was launched by Iraqi security forces.

Jewish settlers have burst into several villages in the occupied West Bank, smashing homes and cars and beating up at least two people, Palestinian officials said. The attacks came a day after Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli man in a shooting ambush in the territory.

The death of settler Yehuda Dimentman, killed when gunmen opened fire on his car near a West Bank settlement outpost late Thursday, threatened to ignite further violence between Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers. Two other passengers in Dimentman's vehicle were lightly wounded.

Official observances took place at the birthplace of Tunisia's 2011 revolution, while opponents and supporters of the country's president held rival demonstrations in the capital Friday, the new date the leader chose to mark Revolution Day.

A few hundred demonstrators gathered in Tunis on Friday morning to protest Tunisian President Kais Saied's consolidation of power over the summer and his subsequent actions that have raised fears of democratic backsliding.

Israeli soldiers carried out a manhunt Friday in the occupied West Bank, a day after the army blamed Palestinians for shooting dead an Israeli settler and wounding two others.

The army, which said Palestinian "terrorists" carried out the attack, has deployed three extra battalions as well as special forces.

As a backhoe dug up the ground to build trenches, Iraqi soldiers scanned the vast farming tracts for militants; not far away, their Kurdish counterparts did the same.

The scene earlier this month in the small northern Iraqi farming village of Lheiban was a rare instance of coordination between the federal government and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The two sides were fortifying a joint position aimed at defending the village against attacks by the Islamic State group.