Israel has given rare approval to Palestinian homes in the part of the occupied West Bank it fully controls while also backing a large settlement expansion, ahead of White House adviser Jared Kushner's key visit Wednesday.

Presidential polls will be held in Tunisia on September 15, the North African country's electoral body has said, rejecting calls to postpone the vote after the death of ailing leader Beji Caid Essebsi.

About 130 inmates have been on hunger strike in an Egyptian prison for more than six weeks in protest at inhumane conditions and denial of family visits, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

The estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai has applied for a UK forced marriage protection order relating to their children, a London court heard Tuesday.

Algeria's powerful army chief Tuesday ruled out accepting any pre-conditions to launching talks to end the country's political crisis, saying there was "no more time to lose".

Around $10 million in aid for the displaced in northern Iraq's Nineveh province, where the Islamic State group was based, has been embezzled by its fugitive ex-governor, the country's anti-corruption commission said Tuesday.

Still reeling from his sudden deportation from Turkey with just the clothes on his back, Mohammad Hassan stood in the arrivals hall at a border crossing in northern Syria unsure what to do next.

Yemen's internationally-recognized government says the Houthi rebels were behind a strike on a market that killed at least 14 civilians, including children, and wounded 27.

Other Yemeni officials and the rebels' health ministry, however, have said that a Saudi-led coalition airstrike was behind Monday's attack in Saada province, a stronghold of the Iran-aligned Houthis.

The US Senate on Monday failed to prevent the controversial sale of $8.1 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia, after President Donald Trump vetoed congressional resolutions blocking the deal.

Despite bipartisan votes this month that served as a rebuke to the president -- and an expression of lawmakers' outrage with the kingdom over Riyadh's role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year -- the effort to override Trump's third use of his veto powers since taking office fell well short.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI has marked 20 years on the throne by pardoning thousands of prisoners, including some from the "Hirak" protest movement that rocked the country in 2016.