Iraq has opened an investigation into the suspected kidnapping of an Israeli-Russian academic after her disappearance in Baghdad, a government spokesman said.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University and fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, has been missing in Iraq for more than three months.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in a flashpoint city in the occupied West Bank Friday, days after Israel concluded a major two-day offensive meant to crack down on militants.

The persistent violence raised questions about the effectiveness of the raid earlier this week, which saw Israel launch rare airstrikes on militant targets, deploy hundreds of troops and cause widespread damage to roads, homes and businesses. As a result of the raid, 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.

An Israeli court on Thursday acquitted a police officer of recklessly killing an unarmed Palestinian man with autism in Jerusalem's Old City.

Iyad Hallak, 32, was shot dead in May 2020 while walking in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, after officers mistook him for an armed assailant.

A dual Israeli-Russian academic who has been missing in Iraq for months is being held by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the office of Israel's prime minister said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Elizabeth Tsurkov, who disappeared in late March, is still alive "and we hold Iraq responsible for her safety and well-being."

Thousands of protesters have blocked Tel Aviv's main highway and major roads and intersections across Israel in a spontaneous outburst of anger following the forced resignation of the city's popular police chief.

Ami Eshed announced late Wednesday that he was leaving the Israeli police force under what he said was political pressure. Eshed has regularly clashed with the country's hard-line national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has demanded that police take a tougher stance against months of anti-government protests.

Russian fighter jets flew dangerously close to several U.S. drone aircraft over Syria on Wednesday, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive maneuvers, the Air Force said.

U.S. Air Forces Central released a video of the encounter, showing a Russian SU-35 fighter closing in on a Reaper, and later showed a number of the so-called parachute flares moving into the drone's flight path. The flares are attached to parachutes.

It's been 16 years since the borders of the Gaza Strip slammed shut after Hamas militants seized control of the territory.

The takeover forced the European Union to withdraw monitors who had been deployed at a Gaza border crossing to help the Palestinians prepare for independence. Yet the EU has regularly renewed funding for the unit since then, most recently late last month.

As Israeli forces pulled out of Jenin, its Palestinian residents came back to assess the devastation: trashed homes, charred cars and roads strewn with rubble, glass and bullet casings.

The West Bank city and militant stronghold has endured violence before, but the latest offensive was the heaviest in years, with air strikes hitting buildings and armored bulldozers ripping up streets.

The U.N. secretary general is hoping that the Security Council will vote later this month to keep a key border crossing from Turkey to Syria's rebel-held northwest open for critical aid deliveries for a period of one year instead of six months, a U.N. official said.

Syria's northwestern province of Idlib is home to some 4 million people, many of whom were earlier displaced during the 12-year civil war, which has killed nearly half a million people. Hundreds of thousands live in tent settlements and rely on aid that comes through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

Jordan's Attarat power plant was envisioned as a landmark project promising to provide the desert kingdom with a major source of energy while solidifying its relations with China.

But weeks after its official opening, the site, a sea of black, crumbly rock in the barren desert south of Jordan's capital, is instead a source of heated controversy. Deals surrounding the plant put Jordan on the hook for billions of dollars in debt to China — all for a plant that is no longer needed for its energy, because of other agreements made since the project's conception.