Israel's coalition deal between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz breaks a year-long deadlock but has pitfalls -- from power sharing mechanisms to West Bank policy and the premier's corruption charges.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached a historic deal Monday with one-time rival parliament speaker Benny Gantz to form an emergency unity government, ending the country's worst political crisis.

Two Syrian ex-intelligence officers accused of crimes against humanity will appear before a German court this week, in the first such trial over state-sponsored torture in Syria.

The UN children's agency on Monday appealed for $92.4 million in new funds for the Middle East and North Africa to help combat the effects of coronavirus on already poverty-stricken areas.

From cancelled iftar feasts to suspended mosque prayers, Muslims across the Middle East are bracing for a bleak month of Ramadan fasting as the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic lingers.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Monday, Tehran said over the weekend, in what would be their first official meeting in a year.

Israel has approved some easing to its tight coronavirus restrictions while pointedly avoiding announcing the first stage of an exit from lockdown.

A man in his fifties has become the first person to die from the novel coronavirus outbreak in the Kurdish-dominated northern part of war-torn Syria, UN officials said Friday.

As governments in the Middle East isolate their populations to prevent the spread of coronavirus, attention is turning to the region's jails, where detainees face a more punishing form of lockdown.

"Because of the pandemic, confinement is an additional punishment for the prisoners," said Kaddour Chouicha, 63, an engineering professor at Algeria's University of Oran and a human rights activist.

Volunteers stack thousands of trays of steaming curry in a Doha kitchen, readying them to be distributed to low-income migrant workers facing food shortages while under lockdown due to COVID-19.