It's not a bomb or a gun or a rocket. The latest threat identified by Israel is the Palestinian flag.

Recent weeks have seen a furor by nationalists over the waving of the red, white, green and black flag by Palestinians in Israel and in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Friday that Israel was prepared to use it's "right to self defense" to stop Iran's nuclear program.

The comments came after IAEA chief Rafael Grossi met Bennett Friday morning during a whirlwind visit.

Kuwait's foreign ministry summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the Gulf Arab emirate over American embassy posts on social media in "support of homosexuality", it said on Friday.

The U.S. embassy in Kuwait had published a picture of an LGBTQ+ flag on its Instagram and Twitter accounts to mark the start of Pride Month on June 1.

Thousands of people have attended the annual Jerusalem Pride Parade amid heavy protection by Israeli police, who arrested three people suspected of threatening the event.

Past years have seen religious radicals attack participants. Jerusalem is home to a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and other conservative religious groups, and many residents oppose the event.

Israeli police arrested dozens of Palestinians but no Jews during a nationalist march through Jerusalem this week in which crowds of Jews chanted racist slogans, assaulted Palestinians and vandalized Palestinian property, an Israeli newspaper reported.

Israeli police had said after Sunday's march that over 60 people were arrested, but have refused to give a breakdown, despite queries by The Associated Press. The Haaretz daily reported Thursday that it checked arrest records name by name, and found that no Jews were among those detained. It said two Jews were arrested in a separate, related incident.

In northern Syria, residents are bracing for a new fight. With the world's attention focused on the war in Ukraine, Turkey's leader says he's planning a major military operation to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters and create a long sought-after buffer zone in the border area.

Tensions are high. Hardly a day passes by without an exchange of fire and shelling between the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, and Turkish forces and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition gunmen.

U.S. President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia this month, reports said Thursday, a stark reversal for a leader who once called for the kingdom to be made a pariah.

The reported decision comes hours after Saudi Arabia addressed two of Biden's priorities by agreeing to a production hike in oil and helping extend a truce in war-battered Yemen.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers stood guard in the occupied West Bank town of Huwara, where the Palestinian flag was blowing in the warm breeze from an electricity pole.

Suddenly, a Jewish settler jumped from a car, hoisted himself up the pole and tore down the flag, to the fury of Palestinian onlookers. 

The U.S. envoy to the UN said Thursday the sole border crossing to deliver aid into Syria must remain open, amid Russian threats to veto a resolution to protect it.

Syria-ally Russia could block the UN Security Council resolution, which expires on July 10, and observers say it is using it as a bargaining chip in the face of punishing sanctions over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. 

Yemen's warring parties have agreed to renew a two-month truce, the United Nations said Thursday, in an 11th-hour move on the day it was set to expire.

"I would like to announce that the parties to the conflict have agreed to the United Nations' proposal to renew the current truce in Yemen for two additional months," the UN special envoy on Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said in a statement.