Iraqis headed to the polls on Tuesday to vote in a parliamentary election marked by tight security and a boycott by a major political bloc.

A total of 8,703 polling stations were open across the country for the general election. Members of the security forces and displaced people living in camps cast their ballots in early voting on Sunday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would strongly enforce its ceasefire agreements in Lebanon and Gaza, vowing that "whoever seeks to harm us, we harm them".

"We are determined to enforce with an iron fist the ceasefire agreements where they exist against those who seek our destruction, and you can see what happens every day in Lebanon," Netanyahu told lawmakers in parliament on Monday.

The United Arab Emirates is not planning to join the international stabilization force for Gaza because it lacks a clear framework, a senior official said on Monday.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said it had received on Monday the bodies of 15 Palestinian prisoners under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire exchange deal.

"The ministry of health announces the receipt of 15 bodies of martyrs released today by the Israeli occupation through the Red Cross, bringing the total number of bodies received to 315" under the hostage-prisoner exchange deal, the ministry said.

Israel on Monday returned the remains of 15 Palestinians to Gaza in the latest step forward for a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, as a top White House envoy met with Israeli leaders to discuss the next stages of the fragile agreement.

Israel returned the bodies after Palestinian militants released the remains of a hostage Sunday. With the latest exchange, only four bodies of hostages remained in Gaza.

Israel on Sunday confirmed it had received the remains of Hadar Goldin, a soldier killed in the Gaza Strip in 2014, closing a painful chapter for the country.

The 23-year-old was killed two hours after a ceasefire took effect in that year's war between Israel and Hamas. Goldin's family waged a public campaign for 11 years to bring home his remains. Earlier this year, they marked 4,000 days since his body was taken.

Iran on Monday dismissed accusations by the United States that Tehran had attempted to kill the Israeli ambassador in Mexico, describing it as "absurd".

"We found this claim very ridiculous and absurd," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei during a weekly press briefing, adding that it was part of an attempt "to destroy Iran's friendly relations with other countries".

Two decades ago, Ahmad al-Sharaa was held in a U.S.-run detention center in Iraq after joining al-Qaida militants fighting against American forces there.

Few would have predicted that he would go on to become the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country's independence in 1946.

Denied contact with his lawyer for months, now freed Palestinian prisoner Shady Abu Sedo said he lost all sense of time while he was held in Israeli jails during the war in Gaza.

Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country's state news agency reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist.