Spotlight
For Nidal Jumaa, a Syrian from Aleppo, life in Turkey is tough. He works part-time at a furniture workshop and collects plastics and cardboard from trash cans that he sells for recycling, but can hardly afford the rent for his run-down house in a low-income neighborhood of Ankara.
Despite the hardship, the 31-year-old would prefer to remain in Turkey than return to Syria where he no longer has a house or a job. Most of all, he worries that his 2-year-old son, Hikmat, who requires regular medical supervision following two surgeries, wouldn't be able to receive the treatment he needs back home.

There was no mourning tent for 23-year-old Palestinian Zuhair al-Ghaleeth. There were no banners with his portrait, no chants celebrating his martyrdom.
Instead, a bulldozer dropped his bullet-riddled body into an unmarked grave, witnesses said.

Israel killed three senior commanders of the militant Islamic Jihad group in targeted airstrikes early Tuesday, the military said. Palestinian health officials said 13 people were killed in all, including the commanders, their wives, several of their children and others nearby.
The attacks in densely populated residential areas set the stage for a new round of heavy fighting. They hit the top floor of an apartment building in Gaza City and a house in the southern town of Rafah. The Palestinian Health Ministry said 20 people were injured, and that ambulances were continuing to evacuate people from the targeted areas.

Lebanon would likely benefit from an end to Saudi-Iranian rivalry, and should the rapprochement solidify it could spell disaster for Israel, The Guardian newspaper said.
"Saudi and Iranian-backed factions have not been able to agree on a replacement (to former president Michel Aoun) despite successive round of voting," the British daily said, as Saudi Arabia refuses to back Hezbollah and Amal's candidate Suleiman Franjieh.

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan discussed efforts to end Yemen's eight-year war during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the White House said in a statement.
The meeting Sunday night in Saudi Arabia came during a tense period for US-Saudi ties, marred by disputes over human rights issues and oil production.

Ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia between Sudan's warring generals have yielded "no major progress" so far, a Saudi official told AFP on Monday, dampening hopes for a quick end to the fighting.
Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), sent representatives to the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah on Saturday for meetings that Washington and Riyadh have described as "pre-negotiation talks".

An air strike killed a major drug smuggler and his family in southern Syria Monday, a war monitor said, attributing the strike to Jordan though Amman did not immediately confirm.
Drug dealer "Marai al-Ramthan, his wife and six children were killed in a Jordanian air force strike" in the eastern countryside of the Sweida province, near the Syrian-Jordanian border, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

An Iraqi police officer has been convicted and sentenced to death in the killing of a prominent security analyst and frequent critic of powerful militias. The ruling came nearly three years after the analyst was gunned down outside his Baghdad home following militia threats.
The family of the victim, Hisham al-Hashimi, said it supported the verdict, but expressed concern it could be overturned on appeal. A relative of al-Hashimi, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, alleged that those who ordered the killing remain at large.

The Arab League has agreed to reinstate Syria, ending a 12-year suspension and taking another step toward bringing Syrian President Bashar Assad, a long-time regional pariah, back into the fold.
Some influential league members remain opposed to reinstating Syria, chief among them Qatar, which did not send its foreign minister to Sunday's gathering. Thirteen out of the league's 22 member states sent their foreign ministers to the meeting in Cairo.

An Egyptian politician residing abroad and planning to run in the country's presidential elections next year said on Friday that two of his uncles and a group of friends and supporters have been detained in recent days.
Ahmed Altantawy, a former member of parliament, did not say how many of his supporters were detained, when it happened and whether they were released or were still being held. He said he was worried for the health of his uncles, suggesting they may still be held.
