Morocco on Friday commemorated the Green March, the 1975 mass mobilization into then-Spanish controlled Western Sahara that helped pave the way for Morocco's takeover of most of the disputed territory. The anniversary comes as the decades-old conflict enters a new diplomatic phase as a U.N. peacekeeping mission there winds down.

In Laayoune, the largest city in the part of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco, signs of the Green March anniversary were visible across public spaces.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday called Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss efforts to end the U.S.-Iran war, amid a diplomatic push to avoid a new round of conflict.

The high-profile exchange was the latest in a flurry of diplomatic phone calls that saw Iran's top diplomat speaking to his counterparts in the Gulf, amid fears that Trump could resume strikes despite major losses in midterms elections.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by state media Friday that two oil tankers caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz, a day after Tehran claimed five other tankers had similar fates.

Since the outbreak of the Middle East war on February 28, Tehran has sought to limit traffic through the strategic waterway, which normally carries about one-fifth of global oil consumption.

Israel's largest Arab party grouping, the Joint List, said Thursday it would recommend opposition bloc leader Gadi Eisenkot for the formation of a new government after last week's election.

An assailant attacked and killed a security officer near the Sri Lankan Embassy in Jordan's capital Amman on Thursday, in what Jordanian authorities described as a terrorist act.

The attack comes weeks after gunmen opened fire during a funeral at a church in southern Jordan, killing nine people and wounding dozens more.

Following the drubbing of U.S. President Donald Trump's Republican Party in the midterm elections, Iranians set fire to a giant poster featuring the American leader and his allies at a rally in Tehran.

In the capital's central Enghelab square, crowds gathered to observe the burning of the poster which also featured his Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthis said on Thursday that a ballistic missile fired by the group at the Medina region -- home to one of Islam's holiest cities -- had been intercepted.

"Air defense intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward the Medina region," coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said in a post on X.

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish party long aligned with Benjamin Netanyahu declined on Thursday to recommend him to stay as Israel's prime minister, as signs grew that rival Gadi Eisenkot will have the first chance to form a government.

President Isaac Herzog was holding a second day of consultations with political parties after the October 27 election, in which neither Netanyahu -- a polarizing right-winger who has led Israel through three years of war -- nor Eisenkot secured enough votes for a majority.

A veteran Arab lawmaker in Israel says his bloc is willing to break with decades of precedent and join forces with Jewish-led parties in a shared bid to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's long rule.

"We want to do things that we did not do in the past in order to remove this criminal government," Ahmad Tibi, a senior member of the Arab Joint List, told The Associated Press.

The parliament in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region elected a speaker on Wednesday, more than two years after elections were held, with the chamber still riven by party divisions.