The U.S. State Department has banned entry into the U.S. of a Syrian intelligence member who appeared in a video leaked last year showing him fatally shooting people during the country's 12-year conflict.

The ban against Amjad Yousef, a member of Syria's notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227, includes his wife and immediate members of his family, the State Department said in a statement.

Shraga Tichover is hanging up his fatigues. After more than three decades as a reservist in the Israeli military, the paratrooper says he will no longer put his life on the line for a country slipping toward autocracy.

Tichover is part of a wave of unprecedented opposition from within the ranks of the Israeli military to a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary. Like Tichover, some reservists are refusing to show up for duty and former commanders are defending their actions as a natural response to the impending change.

An Israeli airstrike hit the Aleppo airport early Tuesday and put it out of service, Syrian state media reported.

Citing a military source, the state news agency SANA said Israel "carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo International Airport." SANA said the strike "caused material damage" to the airport.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit on Tuesday to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, just days before the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Austin was greeted on touchdown in Baghdad by Maj. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, the U.S. commander in Iraq. The defense secretary is expected to meet top officials during his visit to Iraq, which is home to hundreds of American troops helping in the fight against the militant Islamic State group.

Archaeologists unearthed a Sphinx-like statue and the remains of a shrine in an ancient temple in southern Egypt, antiquities authorities said Monday.

The artifacts were found in the temple of Dendera in Qena Province, 280 miles (450 kilometers) south of the capital of Cairo, the Antiquities Ministry said in a statement.

The European Union's administrative watchdog is trying to find out how a top transport official was permitted to fly to Qatar with tickets paid for by the government there, as a major corruption scandal linked to the Gulf state roils the bloc's parliament.

In a letter made public on Monday, European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly noted that the head of the European Commission's transport department, Henrik Hololei, had "traveled a number of times between 2015 and 2021 at the expense of the Qatari government or organizations that are close to it."

Israeli lawmakers advanced a bill on Monday that could allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep a $270,000 donation he received from a relative to pay for his legal fees as he battles corruption charges.

Netanyahu is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals involving wealthy associates and powerful media moguls. He denies wrongdoing and says the accusations are part of a "witch hunt" orchestrated by a biased media, law enforcement and justice system.

Saudi Arabia said Monday it deposited $5 billion into the Turkish central bank, likely helping Ankara firm up its long-weakening currency, the lira, after last month's massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and northern Syria.

The deposit provides a capstone for just how far relations have improved between the kingdom and Turkey after years of tensions the nations, particularly after the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkey also backed Qatar in a yearslong boycott by the kingdom, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel's finance minister has said that he had chosen his words poorly when he called for a Palestinian town to be "wiped out" after two Israeli settlers were killed there.

The two young settlers were shot dead on February 26 in their car in Huwara, a northern town in the West Bank, sparking attacks by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian town.

The World Bank has said that Syria sustained an estimated $5.1 billion in damages in last month's massive earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and northern parts of the war-torn country.

The quake killed at least 50,000 people, including about 6,000 in Syria, according to the United Nations. Tens of thousands are still missing and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.