Hundreds of thousands of hajj pilgrims began streaming out of Mecca Thursday ahead of the highlight of the annual rites, which have attracted huge crowds despite the continuing pandemic and unforgiving heat.

Many of the robed worshippers are making the journey on foot to Mina, seven kilometers (four miles) from Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, where they circled the imposing black Kaaba at the start of the rituals on Wednesday.

After years of a regional blockade and the pandemic, this hajj will be "completely different" for Masoud al-Ali as he and other Qataris are finally able to rejoin the hallowed Muslim pilgrimage.

Of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims arriving in Mecca this week for the annual hajj pilgrimage, perhaps none had a more arduous journey than Adam Mohammed, a 53-year-old electrical engineer from the United Kingdom.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met publicly for the first time in over five years, on the sidelines of Algerian independence anniversary celebrations.

The Israeli military said it shot and killed a Palestinian man during an arrest raid near the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

The army said that during one of a series of raids carried out across the Palestinian territory, its troops fired at a suspect who attempted to escape arrest in the village of Jaba.

Tunisia's President Kais Saied on Tuesday defended a draft constitution set for referendum this month, after the drafting committee's chief disavowed a document he said could return the country to dictatorship.

French authorities on Tuesday repatriated 51 women and children from the former Islamic State group-controlled areas in Syria, according to a statement from the national counterterrorism prosecutor's office.

It's the single largest return of women and children to France from camps in northeastern Syria since the territorial defeat of IS in March 2019. France saw more of its citizens leave to join the group than any other country in Europe.

Iran and its influence in the Middle East were high on the agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday in talks with French President Emmanuel Macron during his first trip abroad in office.

An explosion at an arms depot in Yemen's southern province of Abyan on Tuesday killed three people and wounded 18, medical officials said.

The cause of the early morning blast at the warehouse, located at a popular market in the town of Lawdar, was not immediately known. The town is controlled by forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized government.

U.S. officials have said that the bullet that killed veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was likely fired from an Israeli position. But they said it was too badly damaged to reach an absolute determination, and that there is "no reason to believe" she was deliberately targeted.

State Department spokesman Ned Price, announcing the results of the probe, said "independent, third-party examiners" had undertaken an "extremely detailed forensic analysis" of the bullet that killed her after the Palestinian Authority handed it over to them.