A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison over her Twitter activity, according to court documents seen by AFP yesterday.

Israeli security forces shot dead a Palestinian man they said had tried to stab officers during a home raid to locate weapons in east Jerusalem

Iran yesterday denied any link with the attacker of British author Salman Rushdie but blamed the writer himself for “insulting” Islam in the novel “The Satanic Verses”.

Egyptians voiced outrage yesterday over reports that firefighters and paramedics took over an hour to respond to a blaze that tore through a Coptic Christian church and killed 41 people.

Drones attacked a Syrian outpost of the US-led anti-jihadist coalition yesterday but there were no injuries, the coalition said.

Iranians reacted with praise and worry Saturday over the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death.

Widespread protests were called in Syria’s rebel-held north yesterday over a proposal from Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu for reconciliation between the Syrian government and opposition.

Israeli security forces killed two Palestinians in a gunbattle in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the military said, triggering further clashes in which Palestinians said a 16-year-old youth was also killed.

Iran said yesterday it is examining a “final text” presented by the European Union at the negotiations in Vienna aimed at restoring a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Israel and Palestinian militants have agreed to a truce in Gaza from yesterday evening as mediated by Cairo, sources said, after a weekend-long pounding of Palestinian targets by Israel triggered longer-range rocket attacks against its cities.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed that Turkey will start paying for some of its Russian natural gas imports in rubles.

Escalation of Violence in Gaza

Israel’s military yesterday warned deadly air strikes against Palestinian militants in Gaza could last a week, as cross-border fire reverberated for a second day in the worst escalation since last year’s war.

Israeli jets pounded targets in Gaza on Saturday and rocket barrages into southern Israel persisted, raising fears of an escalation after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave killed at least 12 people, including a 5-year-old girl.

A senior commander of Islamic Jihad was among more than 15 people killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip yesterday, prompting the militant group to warn Israel has made a “declaration of war”.

An Iranian whistleblower who published damaging revelations about the family of the speaker of parliament in April has been sentenced to two years’ jail for publishing false information, Iranian media reported yesterday.

Saudi Arabia welcomed US President Joe Biden's announcement of the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the State news agency reported late on Monday quoting a foreign ministry statement.

Iran said yesterday it remains “optimistic” about a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear deal after the European Union tabled a proposal aiming for a compromise in the talks stalled since March.

The Philippines has no plan to rejoin the International Criminal Court, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said yesterday, with the tribunal’s prosecutor seeking to resume a probe into the ex-president’s deadly drug war.

It’s been two years since his 3-year-old daughter, Alexandra, was killed in a massive explosion at Beirut’s port — and Paul Naggear has lost hope that outrage over the disaster will bring justice and force change in Lebanon.