Ramy Shaath, who was released from an Egyptian jail last month, is an outspoken opponent of Arab dictatorships and Israeli rule over the Palestinians, and is part of a generation of activists who see them as two sides of the same coin.

He was never told why exactly Egyptian authorities confined him to a packed and filthy cell for over two and a half years. But he believes his brand of rights-based activism is clearly seen as a threat by both Israel and its growing roster of autocratic Arab allies.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has traveled to the United Arab Emirates, a trip signaling a further thaw in relations long strained over the two nations' approaches to Islamists in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.

Erdogan arrived in Abu Dhabi, the Emirati capital, following a November visit to Turkey by the country's de facto leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Bahrain's king on a landmark visit Tuesday to the small, oil-rich Gulf country, 17 months after they ended decades of tensions to normalize ties.

It was the latest diplomatic breakthrough since several Arab states under the U.S.-brokered 2020 Abraham Accords ended their isolation of Israel, despite the fact the Israel-Palestinian conflict remains unresolved.

Iraq's top court has banned a veteran Kurdish politician from the country's presidency, citing lingering corruption allegations.

Hoshyar Zebari, a former foreign minister and longtime Iraqi diplomat, had been a front-runner competing against the sitting president, Barham Salih. In Iraq's political system, parliament votes to pick the president who in turn appoints the prime minister.

Saudi Arabia views Cyprus as a "bridge" between the Middle East and the European Union, helping the 27-nation bloc "understand what's going on" in the region, the Saudi foreign minister has said.

Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, speaking after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulides, said that Cyprus helps "really focus the attention" on all the opportunities and challenges in the Middle East.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during clashes in the occupied West Bank late Sunday, hours after police fanned out in a tense east Jerusalem neighborhood trying to contain violence between ultranationalist Jewish activists and Palestinian residents.

Early Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Akram Abu Salah, 17, died from a gunshot to his head.

After years of behind-the-scenes activity in the Gaza Strip, Egypt is going public.

Since mediating a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas militant group, Egypt has sent crews to clear rubble and is promising to build vast new apartment complexes. Egyptian flags and billboards praising President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi have sprung up across the Palestinian territory.

Israeli police clashed with Palestinians in the flashpoint east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday, as a visit by a controversial far-right Jewish lawmaker inflamed tensions.

Hundreds took to the streets of a southern Syrian city on Friday to demand democracy and better living conditions in a rare protest inside regime-held areas, a war monitor said.

The head of an Arab party in Israel who made history last year by joining the governing coalition said he would not use the word "apartheid" to describe relations between Jews and Arabs within the country.

Amnesty International last week joined two other well-known human rights groups in saying that Israel's policies toward the Palestinians within its borders and in the occupied territories amounts to apartheid. Israel rejects those allegations as antisemitic, saying that, among other things, they ignore the rights and freedoms enjoyed by its Arab citizens.