For Mariam Habeib, the grief seems never ending: She lost her older sister, two nieces and a niece's three young children in an intense fire that engulfed a church in Egypt's capital during a recent service and killed 41 people.

The Coptic Christian community is one of the world's oldest, and no stranger to sadness. A minority in Egypt, Coptic Orthodox Christians have faced deadly attacks by Islamic extremists, restrictions on church building and outbursts of sectarian-motivated violence in recent decades. The most recent tragedy brought a flood of sympathy from around the country.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt has met with the leaders of Iraq, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, his office said, as world powers and Iran seek to end 16 months of negotiations over the revival of Tehran's landmark nuclear deal.

El-Sissi and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan received King Abdulla II of Jordan, Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa at the airport in the Mediterranean city of el-Alamein.

Two rival Iranian Kurdish opposition parties based in northern Iraq have announced in a joint statement their reunification 16 years after they split over internal disputes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.