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Egypt's Sisi to host 5-state Arab summit

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is to host a five-nation Arab summit on Monday with the Ukraine war-related energy and food crisis on the agenda, a government newspaper said.

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Israel court rejects call to free Palestinian hunger striker

Israel's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to release a Palestinian detainee who has been on a hunger strike for several months to protest his detention without charge.

Khalil Awawdeh, 40, is protesting being jailed without charge or trial under what Israel refers to as administrative detention. His family says he has been on a hunger strike for 170 days, subsisting only on water. A photo of Awawdeh taken by his lawyer on Saturday shows him appearing frail and lying in a hospital bed.

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Freed bull races through Israeli streets into building

A bull escaped from its pen early Monday, setting off a panicked scene in the streets of a central Israeli city before entering an office building and evading capture for half an hour as it scampered through the hallways.

Bank Leumi said the bull entered its offices in an industrial zone in the city of Lod, near Tel Aviv.

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Yemen officials: UAE-backed forces take southern oil fields

Yemeni forces backed by the United Arab Emirates seized control of vital southern oil and gas fields after nearly a week of fierce clashes with their rivals, loyal to the internationally recognized government, officials and tribal leaders said Monday.

The clashes pitted the UAE-backed Giants Brigades and Shabwa Defense Forces on one side and the paramilitary police known as the Special Security Forces on the other.

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Israel launches flights for West Bank Palestinians

Israel on Monday launched a scheme allowing Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to fly abroad from an airport in the Negev desert.

Forty Palestinians were aboard the first flight from Ramon airport near the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat, a spokeswoman for the Israel Airports Authority told AFP.

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Two more bodies pulled from Iraq shrine after landslide

Two bodies were recovered on Monday from a shrine in Iraq's Karbala province after a landslide caused it to partially collapse, bringing the overall toll to seven dead, rescue services said.

"Unfortunately, we found this morning two bodies, a man and a woman", under the rubble of Qattarat al-Imam Ali, Jawdat Abdelrahman, director of the civil defense media department, told AFP.

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Palestinian activist defies Israeli interrogation order

A Palestinian rights campaigner said that Israel tried to summon him for questioning, as it pressed ahead with a crackdown on Palestinian rights groups based in the West Bank.

European and U.S. diplomats have pushed back against the claim by Israeli officials that the targeted groups are linked with terrorism.

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Qatar detains workers protesting late pay before World Cup

Qatar recently arrested at least 60 foreign workers who protested going months without pay and deported some of them, an advocacy group said, just three months before Doha hosts the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The move comes as Qatar faces intense international scrutiny over its labor practices ahead of the tournament. Like other Gulf Arab nations, Qatar heavily relies on foreign labor. The workers' protest a week ago — and Qatar's reaction to it — could further fuel the concern.

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UAE ambassador to return to Iran, boosting ties after years

The United Arab Emirates plans to reinstate its ambassador to Iran for the first time in six years, the Emirati Foreign Ministry has announced, as the Gulf Arab federation accelerates efforts to improve ties with the nation it has long viewed as a regional threat.

The Emirates' ambassador to Iran, Saif Mohammed Al Zaabi, will return to Tehran in the coming days to "continue pushing bilateral relations forward to achieve the common interests of the two neighbors and the region," the UAE's state-run WAM news agency reported.

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Sadr's supporters pray in new show of strength

Thousands of supporters of Iraq's powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr stepped up their pressure tactics Friday with a weekly prayer session in the high-security Green Zone they have occupied for three weeks.

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