Representatives of Afghanistan's Taliban government began meetings on Sunday with UN officials as they attended talks in Doha with special envoys to the Central Asian country for the first time, a UN spokesperson said.

The two-day, UN-hosted meeting in Qatar is the third of its kind in the gas-rich emirate in just over a year but the first to include Taliban authorities who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Palestinian officials said an Israeli strike on Sunday in the occupied West Bank killed a man identified by a militant group as one of its commanders, with the Israeli military confirming it had targeted a "wanted terrorist".

Palestinian official news agency Wafa said the strike was carried out with a drone that hit a house in Nur Shams refugee camp, near the town of Tulkarm in northern West Bank.

The Ramallah-based health ministry said a Palestinian man was killed and five other people were wounded "following a strike by the (Israeli) occupation".

The first round of Iran's presidential election revealed shrinking support for both reformists and conservatives even though some voters are pushing for change by backing the sole reformist candidate, analysts say.

Masoud Pezeshkian, the reformist contender, and ultraconservative Saeed Jalili led the polls held on Friday to replace the late ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.

Heavy battles and bombardment hit Gaza City's Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged his forces were engaged in a "difficult fight".

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighbourhood, where the Israeli army said it has carried out raids and fought Palestinian militants both "above and below ground" in tunnels.

Two men were remanded in custody Sunday in connection with an attack outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade that Serbian authorities called a "targeted terrorist act", a minister said.

The assailant, whom the police said was a "convert" to Islam, shot a Serbian police officer in the neck with a crossbow while he was on duty in front of the embassy early Saturday.

The officer then shot and killed the attacker.

The assailant, from Mladenovac, near Belgrade, lived in Novi Pazar, a historical and political centre of Serbia's Bosniak Muslim minority, police said.

At least once a day, the hum of every fan, air conditioner and fridge across Egypt goes quiet. The lights go out and an expletive is muttered or hurled into the quickly-heating air.

Lifts stop, errands are cancelled and meetings delayed for as long as the power stays out -- hopefully an hour or two, but recently even longer.

It is now a year since energy and foreign currency crises led Egypt's government to institute planned blackouts known as "load shedding".

But the measures have not been felt equally across the country.

A Serbian police officer on Saturday killed a man who shot him in the neck with a crossbow in front of the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, in what the prime minister called a "terrorist act".

Police identified the assailant as being a "convert" to Islam, who was born in 1999 in the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Belgrade.

The attack happened around 11:00 am (0900 GMT) on Saturday in the Serbian capital, when the attacker shot the officer who was on duty outside the Israeli embassy.

Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on Saturday, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called "unbearable" living conditions in the territory.

An AFP correspondent reported explosions from the Shujaiya area near Gaza City, and a resident saying bodies were seen on the streets.

The armed wings of both Hamas and the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said they were engaged in ongoing fighting with Israeli forces there.

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran's sole reformist candidate, has risen from relative obscurity to leading the votes in the first round of the Islamic republic's presidential elections, stunning supporters and rivals alike.

Pezeshkian, 69, won the largest number of votes in a first round on Friday that saw him face off against three figures from the conservative camp, all vying to replace late president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash last month.

Ultraconservative former Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who will face a reformist in a runoff for president, is widely recognised for his steadfast anti-Western stance.

Jalili, 58, will aim to unify Iran's fragmented conservative factions in the bid for the presidency when he faces Masoud Pezeshkian next Friday.

A relatively reserved figure with a well-groomed white beard and spectacles, Jalili will seek to persuade voters he is best suited to lead Iran under the guidance of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate authority in the country.