Israel yesterday closed its only crossing for people with the Gaza Strip except for humanitarian cases after weekend border clashes, the latest tightening of its blockade on the Palestinian enclave despite truce efforts.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has signed off on a law tightening controls over the internet in the country, the official gazette said

Saudi Arabian Airlines says a system failure has resulted in disruption of flights, as the kingdom prepares to host the annual hajj pilgrimage. So far more than one million pilgrims have arrived in the kingdom, according to state media. The hajj is set to take place from August 19-24.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said Turkey would boycott US electronic goods in retaliation for punitive sanctions by Washington against Ankara over the detention of an American pastor.

Forty children were among 51 people killed in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a bus in rebel-held northern Yemen, the Red Cross said in a new toll yesterday.

Another round of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants inthe Gaza Strip is inevitable, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor

At least 100 Afghan security forces have been killed as troops backed by US airpower struggled to push the Taliban from embattled Ghazni city, officials said yesterday, while residents reported food and medicine shortages four days after fighting began.

Egyptian security forces have killed "terrorists" in a shootout in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, where the Islamic State group is active,

Four members of the Jordanian security forces and three "terrorists" have been killed during a raid on a militant hideout after an officer

A "National Army" being set up by Syrian rebels with Turkey's help could become a long-term obstacle to President Bashar al-Assad's recovery of the northwest - if they can end factional rivalries that have long blighted the opposition.

The death toll from a 6.9-scale earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok has reached 387 people, authorities said yesterday,

A 40-year-old Palestinian hit by Israeli fire on the Gaza border died of his wounds yesterday, taking the death toll from protests the

Both Taliban and government forces claimed they were in control of the eastern Afghan city of Ghazni yesterday, after insurgents

Iran gave its most explicit rejection yet of talks with the United States yesterday, and accused Washington of an "addiction to

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) likes to do things big and bold.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey's partnership with the United States may be in jeopardy as ties strain, warning Ankara

The Saudi-led coalition yesterday announced a probe into an air strike on a bus that killed at least 29 children in Yemen where it is fighting Huthi rebels.

The Israel-Gaza border was quiet yesterday after an Egyptian-brokered truce ended a surge in violence that had shaken southern Israel and the Gaza Strip for two days.

At least 28 Islamic State group jihadists were killed Monday in coordinated strikes by the US-led coalition and allied fighters in eastern Syria's Deir Ezzor province, a monitoring group said. IS, which once controlled swathes of Syria and Iraq, has been pounded by multiple offensives and today controls less than three percent of Syria's territory.

An Israeli strike yesterday killed two militants of the Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas movement after shots were fired at soldiers, Gazan and Israeli officials said. Palestinian sources said that the Israeli attack was in the north of the strip but they said it was a drone strike, while the Israeli statement said that it was tank fire.