Elon Musk, the tech billionaire closely allied with US President-elect Donald Trump, met Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in a bid to defuse tensions between Tehran and Washington, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The newspaper quoted anonymous Iranian sources as describing the meeting between the world's richest person and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani as "positive."

The two met for more than an hour at a secret location on Monday, the newspaper said.

Stewards had to intervene at the Nations League match between France and Israel on Thursday to stop fans of both nations from clashing in the stands, an AFP reporter saw.

Videos taken by spectators and posted on the X social media network show fans, some with Israeli flags, running along the rows of seats at the Stade de France while other fans whistled and booed.

Stewards wearing orange bibs moved between the two groups to separate them.

Paris police told AFP it could not comment until it had received more information.

Young Libyans have mobilised for Saturday's municipal elections, the first time many will vote in the fractured North African country where polls have been rare since Moamer Kadhafi's 2011 overthrow.

"Elections are a new concept here," said Radouane Erfida, 21, from Misrata, as he and other volunteers eagerly gave out leaflets and engaged with potential voters ahead of polling day.

"To help people accept and understand the process, we need awareness campaigns," he told AFP.

Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, a special UN committee said Thursday, as a Human Rights Watch report said Israel's displacement of Gazans amounts to a "crime against humanity".

Israel said HRW's claims were "completely false", insisting its "efforts are directed solely at dismantling Hamas's terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza", though it had not yet responded to the UN report.

More than a year of clashes that recently escalated into war have cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges initiated by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.

The tale of a distinctly Palestinian road trip -- through refugee camps and Israeli checkpoints -- takes centre stage in director Rashid Masharawi's latest film, which debuted at this year's Cairo International Film Festival.

"It's a search for home, a search for Palestine, for ourselves," Masharawi told AFP a day after Wednesday's world premiere of his new film "Passing Dreams".

It kicked off the Middle East's oldest film festival, which opened with a traditional dabkeh dance performance by a troupe from the war-torn Gaza Strip.

The UN peacekeeping chief whose force monitors Lebanon's south said redeploying Lebanese troops there is crucial for any solution to more than a year of Hezbollah-Israel clashes that escalated into war in September.

"The redeployment of the Lebanese armed forces is an absolutely central element to any durable settlement," Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told reporters during a briefing in the Beirut area, at the end of a three-day visit.

A war monitor said Israeli strikes in and around Damascus on Thursday killed 20 people including Palestinian militants and Iran-backed fighters, as attacks intensify during the Lebanon war.

The attacks coincided with an official visit to Damascus by Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Human rights campaigners on Thursday paid tribute to an Iranian activist who killed himself hours after warning he would do so if four inmates seen to be political prisoners were not freed.

Kianoosh Sanjari, an opponent of the Islamic republic's clerical authorities, warned in a message on X late Wednesday that he would commit suicide if the release of the two men and two women did not take place.

He then took his own life, according to multiple rights campaigners and organisations.

Air strikes hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Thursday after an Israeli warning to evacuate parts of the Hezbollah bastion, AFPTV images showed.

A plume of grey smoke rose over the area after the latest strike since Israel sharply intensified its campaign against the Iran-backed militant group in September.

Shortly before the strike, Israel had issued a warning to residents to evacuate their homes.