Israel and France played out a goalless draw in a Nations League football match in Paris on Thursday surrounded by a huge security operation.

Around 4,000 police and members of the security forces patrolled inside and outside the Stade de France to prevent a repetition of the attacks on fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam last week.

A further 1,600 civilian security personnel were also on duty.

Stewards had to intervene at one point to stop fans of both nations from clashing in the stands, an AFP reporter saw.

Israel suffered one of the deadliest days of its ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Wednesday when six of its soldiers were killed in combat near the border.

The soldiers "fell during combat in southern Lebanon", the army said in a statement. Their deaths mean 47 Israeli troops have been killed in combat with Hezbollah since September 30, when Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon.

The army's announcement came after new Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said there would be no easing up in the war against Hezbollah.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the visiting head of the UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday that his government was willing to resolve doubts about its atomic programme, ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump's arrival in office.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said achieving "results" in nuclear talks with Iran was vital to avoid a new conflict in the region already inflamed by Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A CIA official has been charged in connection with a leak of classified US intelligence documents about Israel's plans for a retaliatory strike on Iran, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Asif Rahman, who worked abroad for the Central Intelligence Agency, was arrested in Cambodia by the FBI and was to appear in a federal court in Guam on Thursday, the newspaper said.

It said Rahman, who held a top secret security clearance, was indicted in Virginia last week with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national intelligence information.

Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday that Israel's repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the "war crime of forcible transfer", and to "ethnic cleansing" in parts of the Palestinian territory.

"Human Rights Watch has amassed evidence that Israeli officials are... committing the war crime of forcible transfer," the report said.

"Israel's actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing" in the areas where Palestinians will not be able to return, HRW added.

Sudan has seen a surge in extreme violence in recent weeks as the warring military and paramilitary push for a decisive victory, with no political solution in sight.

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intensified since late October, with reports of attacks on civilians including sexual violence against women and girls raising alarm.

The war that erupted in April 2023 has created what the UN calls the world's worst displacement crises, with more than 11 million people forced from their homes.

Iran hanged a 26-year-old man for a second time Wednesday months after a previous execution was halted half a minute in, an NGO said.

Ahmad Alizadeh was arrested in October 2018 on a murder charge, which he denied, and was sentenced to death, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), which tracks executions in Iran, said in a statement.

For centuries, hammams were central to Ottoman society, and while they mostly fell out of use with the advent of running water, many in Turkey are being restored to revive an ancient ritual bathing tradition.

A mainstay of old Turkish films, hammam scenes were highly entertaining, a free space where women would socialise, eat, drink and even dance.

Last year, Istanbul's 500-year-old Zeyrek Cinili Hammam -- built during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent by the celebrated Ottoman architect Sinan -- reopened after a painstaking 13-year restoration.

After fleeing Iran and making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, Kurdish activist Maysoon Majidi did not expect to be jailed in Italy for people smuggling.

But the day after arriving on a boat last December, she was arrested and held for 10 months -- a victim, her supporters say, of a migration clampdown by Giorgia Meloni's government.

"I tried to say who I was, that I am a political refugee, that I have done nothing wrong," the 28-year-old told AFP by telephone from Calabria, in southern Italy, where she was recently released.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi is set to visit Tehran on Wednesday for crucial talks on Iran's nuclear programme, warning just ahead of his trip that room for manoeuvre is narrowing.

His visit comes only two days after the defence minister of Iran's nemesis Israel warned the Islamic republic was "more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities".

Israel has long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies.