Kuwait said Wednesday its refining capacity had reached a record 1.8 million barrels per day as it inaugurated one of the region's biggest refineries which started operating at full capacity in recent months.

Made up of three component units, the huge Al-Zour refinery is one of the biggest in the Middle East. It was officially inaugurated on Wednesday, months after its output reached full capacity of 615,000 bpd.

"We have succeeded in reaching an unprecedented refining capacity of 1.83 million bpd both domestically and abroad," Oil Minister Emad Mohammed al-Atiqi said.

President Xi Jinping told his Egyptian counterpart on Wednesday that China was "deeply pained" by the "extremely severe" situation in Gaza, as Beijing hosts Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and several other Arab leaders.

The talks between Xi, Sisi and other Arab dignitaries in China this week are aimed at building consensus between Beijing and the Arab nations, as well as presenting a "common voice" on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

When Bassem Eido steps outside his modest village house in Iraq's Sinjar district, he is reminded of the horrors that befell the majority-Yazidi region during the Islamic State group's onslaught a decade ago.

The area near the Syrian border still bears the scars of the fighting that raged there in 2014 -- bullet-riddled family homes with pancaked roofs and warning signs of the lethal threat of landmines and war munitions.

Israel's army said Wednesday it took control of a vital Gaza-Egypt corridor it suspects aided weapons smuggling as the ground offensive against Hamas in the border city of Rafah intensified.

A military spokesman said about 20 tunnels were found in the area of the corridor, a claim rejected by Egypt which accused Israel of using allegations of tunnels under the border as cover for its Rafah offensive.

Former US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has been photographed writing "Finish Them" on an Israeli shell as she toured sites near the northern border with Lebanon.

The photograph was posted on X on Tuesday by Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli parliament and former ambassador to the United Nations, who was accompanying Haley on her visit.

"'Finish Them'. This is what my friend the former ambassador Nikki Haley wrote," Danon said in his post that showed a kneeling Haley writing on a shell with a purple marker pen.

US President Joe Biden has no plans to change his Israel policy following a deadly weekend strike on Gaza's Rafah -- but is not turning a "blind eye" to the plight of Palestinian civilians, the White House said Tuesday.

Gazan health authorities said 45 people were killed as a blaze tore through a camp for displaced people following the Sunday strike by Israel.

But Washington does not believe that Israel's actions in Rafah amount to a full-scale operation that would breach Biden's "red lines," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Israel's military offensive in Rafah is already taking a dire health toll in southern Gaza, and if it continues, "substantial" increases in deaths can be expected, a top WHO official warned Tuesday.

Since Israel launched its long-threatened Rafah incursion in early May, access to healthcare in Gaza's southernmost city has been devastated, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's representative in the Palestinian territories.

Joe Biden's red lines over Israel's assault on Rafah have kept shifting, but the US president faces growing pressure to take a firmer stance after a deadly strike in the Gazan city.

Despite global outrage over the attack in which 45 people were killed, the White House insisted on Tuesday that it did not believe Israel had launched the major operation that Biden has warned against.

John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesman, said that Biden had been consistent and was not "moving the stick" on what defined an all-out military offensive by key ally Israel.

Hundreds braved roads in Rafah in south Gaza Tuesday as they fled Israel's expanding ground assault, with increased shelling, tanks in the city centre, and forces positioned on higher ground.

"We are panicking and afraid," 40-year-old Ihab Zorob of west Rafah told AFP.

"Our children and wives haven't stopped crying. The bombing last night and throughout the morning has been intense and severe," he said.

"Seeing people flee has made us more afraid, so we've decided to seek shelter in Al-Mawasi (on the coast). Hopefully we'll find space there."

The Israel-Hamas war, raging in Gaza since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack, has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.

Slovenia on Tuesday became the latest country to recognise a state of Palestine, breaking with the long-held view of Western powers that Palestinians can only gain statehood as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.

This follows the same move made last week by Spain, Ireland and Norway.