Israeli barbershops and some other businesses reopened Sunday as Israel began easing its third coronavirus lockdown Sunday amid an aggressive vaccination campaign.

Early Friday, the government announced it was lifting some restrictions imposed since December, when the country saw a rise in Covid-19 infections.

The key Palestinian factions -- Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Gaza's Hamas Islamists -- plan to meet in Cairo this week to tackle issues that could threaten long-awaited Palestinian elections.

Technical, legal and security issues must be resolved first, observers say, to ensure the first Palestinian votes in 15 years are not derailed by acrimony between the former enemies.

Saudi Arabia intercepted an armed drone launched towards the kingdom by Yemen's Huthis, state media said Sunday, a day after the US moved to delist the rebels as a terrorist group.

Libya embarked Saturday on a new phase of its post-Kadhafi transition after the selection of a unity government to lead the country until December elections following a decade of chaos.

The US has moved to delist Yemen's Huthi rebels as a terrorist organization, removing a block that humanitarian groups said jeopardized crucial aid as the country's warring sides cautiously welcomed a push for peace by President Joe Biden.

The leader of al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate has been under arrest for several months, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday, in what will be seen as a huge breakthrough in the fight against the global jihadist threat.

Egypt has freed a journalist for Qatar's Al Jazeera, a security source said Friday, after four years in jail without trial following the end last month of a rift between the two Arab states.

A Palestinian was shot dead Friday inside a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank that he infiltrated overnight, sources from both sides said.

Yemen's warring factions declared their readiness to act after U.S. President Joe Biden called for renewed efforts to end their conflict, but experts said Friday that a real solution appears out of reach.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that the war in Yemen "has to end," pledging to terminate U.S. support for Saudi-led offensive operations and to halt arms sales.