Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has met with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Cairo, a first since Syria's civil war broke out over a decade ago, Shoukry's office said.

The meeting comes amid amplified Arab engagement with the Damascus government which has been politically isolated in the region since the start of the Syria war and was expelled from the Cairo-based Arab League in 2011 over its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.

Five Syrian soldiers were wounded in an Israeli air strike near the western city of Homs early Sunday, Syria's state news agency SANA said.

The strike was Israel's third in recent days after Damascus was targeted on the nights of March 30 and 31, according to the agency.

Israeli police said Saturday they shot dead an Arab Israeli who grabbed a gun from an officer and fired it in a scuffle in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Police said the attack took place around midnight near the Chain Gate, an access point to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday pledged enduring ties with Israel but warned against inflaming tensions with the Palestinians, following a rare public spat between the allies.

President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters Tuesday, called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from a bid to weaken the judiciary that has set off massive protests.

Thousands of right-wing Israelis have blocked a main highway in Tel Aviv as they demonstrated in favor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the country's judicial system.

The crowd was much smaller than the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets in recent months to demonstrate against the plan.

The Pentagon has said that an additional six troops were injured in attacks last week in northeastern Syria that U.S. officials have blamed on Iranian-backed militants.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said the six were in addition to the death of an American contractor and the wounding of six troops and another contractor in the two separate attacks.

Israeli airstrikes hit the suburbs of Syria's capital city early Friday for the second day in a row, killing an Iranian adviser, the state media of Syria and Iran reported.

Loud explosions were heard over Damascus shortly after midnight Thursday, according to residents in the capital and the state news agency SANA. The airstrikes came after similar attacks early Thursday.

Prosecutors in the Arab Gulf nation of Bahrain on Thursday have handed down yearlong prison sentences to three people for debating Islamic theology in a series of blog posts and online videos.

The three are part of a local cultural society called Tajdeed, Arabic for Renewal, that says it questions traditional Islamic scholarship and jurisprudence but not the religion itself. Critics, including prominent Shiite clerics in the kingdom, have accused the group of attacking the foundations of Islam and have waged a campaign of incitement against them.

Syrian state media said Israel staged airstrikes in the Damascus area early Thursday, wounding two soldiers and causing material damage.

Loud explosions were heard over the Syrian capital around 1:30 a.m., and the SANA state news agency said Syrian air defenses were "confronting hostile targets." SANA, quoting an unidentified military official, said some missiles were shot down by the air defenses.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, has appointed his eldest son Khaled as crown prince of Abu Dhabi, placing him as next in line to take over as the leader of the federation.

The state-run WAM news agency announced the appointment of Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as crown prince late Wednesday, without providing further details.