The Israeli government has approved a plan to increase the population of the annexed Golan Heights, while insisting it had no intention of confronting Syria after seizing a U.N.-monitored buffer zone.

As Islamist-led rebel forces swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad out of power last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered troops to seize the demilitarized zone between the two countries' forces on the Golan Heights.

Personal photos of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad have surfaced from his abandoned residences, sparking ridicule among Syrians who until days ago were persecuted for criticizing his carefully crafted public image.

The intimate and candid photos, reportedly discovered in albums from Assad's mansions in the hills of Damascus and Aleppo, offer a stark contrast to the polished, glamorous image that Assad and his father projected as they led Syria for half a century.

In central Gaza's Nuseirat urban refugee camp, mourners gathered Monday for the funeral of a Palestinian journalist working for Al-Jazeera who was killed the day before in a strike on a point for Gaza’s civil defense agency. They carried him through the street from the hospital, his blue bulletproof vest resting atop his body.

Al-Jazeera said Ahmad Baker al-Louh, 39, had been covering rescue operations of a family wounded in an earlier bombing when he was killed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported early Monday that Israeli airstrikes pounded missile warehouses and other former Syrian army sites along Syria’s coast in the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region since the beginning of the (Israeli) strikes in 2012.”

The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes.

The Dutch city of Deventer transformed Saturday into a pocket of 19th-century England, with 950 people in costumes bringing characters from Charles Dickens' books to life.

Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge and Miss Havisham were among the characters at hand, mingling with chimney sweepers, livestock and Christmas carol singers in Deventer's historic center. Onlookers bowed when Queen Victoria passed through.

Real Madrid was held at Rayo Vallecano to 3-3 in a thrilling derby on Saturday, missing a chance to overtake Barcelona at the top of La Liga.

Rayo set a fast pace and stunned the powerhouse with two headed goals from Unai López and Abdul Mumin to lead 2-0 by the 36th minute.

Germany's foreign minister is warning anyone involved in atrocities for the ousted Syrian government against seeking refuge in her country, saying they would face "the full force of the law."

Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there. In rulings since 2021, former Syrian secret police officers already have been convicted in Germany for overseeing or facilitating the abuse of detainees.

South Korea's opposition leader offered Sunday to work with the government to ease the political tumult as officials sought to reassure allies and markets, a day after the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol over a short-lived attempt to impose martial law.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, whose party holds a majority in the National Assembly, urged the Constitutional Court to rule swiftly on Yoon's impeachment and proposed a special council for policy cooperation between the government and parliament.

Pope Francis' one-day visit to the French island of Corsica on Sunday, two days before his 88th birthday, puts a dual focus on the Mediterranean, highlighting local traditions of popular piety on the one hand and migrant deaths and wars on the other.

A brass band and children in traditional garb greeted Francis at the airport, and thousands lined the route of his motorcade waving flags and shouting greetings. The pope stopped along the way to listen to a choir of children singing.

Taylor Swift has made a surprise stop at a Kansas City children's hospital, shocking parents and patients alike as she laughed with them, posed for photos and exchanged gifts.

All parent Cassie Thomas was told beforehand was that she might want to brush her hair and teeth because there was going to be a special visitor. But she was stunned when Swift, fresh off her Eras Tour and one day before her 35th birthday, walked into her son's room on Thursday at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.