The woman, a member of Syria 's Alawite religious minority, was walking home on a sunny July day in her town on the Mediterranean coast when three gunmen stopped her and pulled her into their van. It was the start of a week of torment.

Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.

"Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing", an Israeli official said in a statement Tuesday, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.

A Hamas leader on Tuesday threatened to not move forward into the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement until more pressure is placed on Israel to open up a key border crossing, cease deadly strikes and allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.

The accusation came as Israel's government says it's ready to move into the next, more complicated phase of the ceasefire deal – even as it has called on the militant group to return the remains of the last Israeli hostage held in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Donald Trump in the United States on December 29, a spokeswoman for the premier's office told AFP on Tuesday.

It will be Netanyahu's fifth visit to meet Trump in the U.S. since the start of the year and comes after the prime minister said he expected the second phase of the US-sponsored ceasefire plan for Gaza to begin soon.

Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for nearly half of all journalists killed this year worldwide, with 29 Palestinian reporters slain by its forces in Gaza.

In its annual report, the Paris-based media freedom group said the total number of journalists killed reached 67 globally this year, up from 66 killed in 2024.

The Associated Press' top photos from the Middle East and the surrounding region in 2025 capture conflict, resilience, and moments of quiet wonder. Taken across Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, the 35 images reveal a turbulent year.

Photographers documented the human toll of war and violence: civilians affected by the Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank, devastation and death in Gaza, and hostages returning from Gaza. In Lebanon, a child injured by an exploding pager in an Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah members shows the intimate cost of conflict. In Syria, the aftermath of a bomb attack on a church and a fallen statue of late Syrian President Hafez Assad are juxtaposed with the exuberance of a night out at a bar.

By Andrew Latham, Professor of Political Science, Macalester College

With the remains of one hostage still in Gaza, the first phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas is nearly complete, after a two-month process plagued by delays and finger-pointing.

Now, the key players — including Israel, the Palestinian militant Hamas group, the United States and a diverse list of international parties — are to move to a far more complicated second phase that could reshape the Middle East.

The airspace of war-torn Yemen was briefly closed Monday, an official said, as tensions escalated in the country's south after a separatist group, backed by the United Arab Emirates, took over of an oil-rich region in a rift that could fracture the anti-Houthi alliance.

A Yemeni government official said that the Saudi-led coalition didn't issue required permissions for flights to or from Yemen, briefly halting flights to and from the southern city of Aden — the seat of the internationally recognized government.

Israeli police forcibly entered the compound of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem early Monday, escalating a campaign against an organization that has been banned from operating on Israeli territory.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, said in a statement that "sizeable numbers" of Israeli forces including police on motorcycles, trucks and forklifts entered the compound in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and cut communications to the compound.