Spotlight
Grief and anger gripped the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah after fire swept through a Covid isolation unit killing 64 people and wounding dozens more.
The devastating Monday evening blaze in the city's Al-Hussein Hospital, which medics said was fuelled by the explosion of oxygen canisters, was the second such fire in Iraq in three months.
Full StoryWar-scarred Iraq is seeing thousands of new Covid cases a day but few people wear face masks and even fewer are vaccinated, sparking fears of an "epidemiological catastrophe".
Healthcare workers say they are battling not just the pandemic but also a widespread skepticism over vaccines, borne of misinformation and public mistrust in the state.
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Israel said Sunday it would punish Palestinians for the practice of paying militants for attacks by freezing tax payments it collects for the Palestinian Authority.
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Israel said Monday it had expanded the fishing zone off Gaza and would allow additional imports into the blockaded Palestinian territory following "recent security calm."
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A Jordanian court on Monday sentenced two former officials to 15 years in jail after finding them guilty of a coup plot that sparked a rare crisis in a kingdom seen as a pillar of stability in the region.
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EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday the bloc was hoping for a fresh start with Israel's new government, as Foreign Minister Yair Lapid held talks in Brussels.
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Israel's former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally departed his official Jerusalem residence early on Sunday, nearly a month after he was ousted by his successor Naftali Bennett.
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Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi early Sunday visited in hospital a pro-democracy activist who has been critical of pro-Iran armed factions, after the campaigner had been abducted and assaulted.
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A mortar shell landed in a gas field in eastern Syria housing coalition forces, a war monitor reported on Sunday.
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Steep bread and diesel price hikes went into force in government-held parts of war-torn Syria on Sunday, bringing more pain for civilians in a long-running economic crisis.
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