Israel's defense minister on Thursday called for an immediate halt in plans to ship surplus coronavirus vaccines to a group of allied nations, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of acting without oversight or transparency.

Syria's health minister on Thursday said his government procured coronavirus vaccines from a friendly country which he declined to name, adding that frontline health workers would be the first to be inoculated starting next week.

It was not clear why Hassan Ghabbash declined to name the country that provided the vaccines. He spoke at a press conference where only reporters from local media outlets were invited.

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation's undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

A dig about the size of a soccer field and likely several stories deep now sits just meters (yards) from the aging reactor at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near the city of Dimona. The facility is already home to decades-old underground laboratories that reprocess the reactor's spent rods to obtain weapons-grade plutonium for Israel's nuclear bomb program.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, has had successful surgery for appendicitis, state media reported late Wednesday. 

Jordan has reimposed an all-day curfew on Fridays to stem the spread of coronavirus as cases rise, officials said Wednesday.

A U.S. intelligence report on the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul will be out "soon," the White House said Wednesday.

A German court on Wednesday convicted a former Syrian intelligence service agent for complicity in crimes against humanity, in the first court case worldwide over state-sponsored torture by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.

As the sound of gunfire grew closer, Mahfouz Ahmed knew to scoop up his children and run, before getting caught in the line of fire between Yemen's warring sides.

US President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi spoke about this week's rocket strikes on the US embassy in Baghdad, the White House said Tuesday, with both leaders saying those responsible should be "held fully to account."

A German man went on trial Tuesday for allegedly spying for Egypt while he was working in Chancellor Angela Merkel's press office.