Arab foreign ministers met Wednesday in Saudi Arabia ahead of the Arab League's annual summit in the kingdom to discuss the upcoming gathering's agenda and draft resolutions.

This year's summit, starting Friday in the city of Jeddah, will mark the readmittance of war-torn Syria into the 22-member league, after a 12-year suspension. Syria's membership was frozen following Syrian President Bashar Assad's brutal crackdown on the 2011 mass protests against his rule. The country quickly descended into a brutal civil war that has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country's pre-war population of 23 million.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is expected to end his 12-year exile from the Arab League this week at a summit in Saudi Arabia, which championed his return over the objections of other regional leaders.

Assad's invitation to Friday's summit in Jeddah signals his return to the fold after more than a decade of isolation since his government's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011 triggered a war that has killed more than 500,000 people.

The Tunisian Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party on Tuesday condemned the one-year prison sentence handed to its leader Rached Ghannouchi, calling it an "unjust political verdict".

Ghannouchi, a leading opponent of President Kais Saied, was sentenced on Monday on terrorism-related charges following his April 17 arrest.

In Gaza, dozens of homes were destroyed during five days of fighting, which erupted when the Israeli military launched deadly strikes on top militants from the Islamic Jihad militant group.

In total, 103 homes were completely destroyed and 140 severely damaged in the fighting, the United Nations said Tuesday, citing officials in Gaza.

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad received an invitation to attend the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai later this year, even as the yearslong war in his country over his rule grinds on.

Assad's invite, late Monday, to the climate talks comes as the Syrian president already is scheduled to attend the Arab League summit this Friday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, years after being frozen out of regional politics. A brutal crackdown by Assad's government on demonstrators in a 2011 Arab Spring uprising challenging his rule descended into a civil war and consequently became a regional conflict.

Israel's foreign minister has paid a visit to Sweden in a new sign of warming ties between the two nations.

Eli Cohen said his visit to Stockholm was the first visit by an Israeli foreign minister to Sweden in 22 years.

Cyprus and Israel are working on a deal to build a pipeline that will convey natural gas from both countries to the east Mediterranean island nation, where it will be liquefied for export by ship to Europe and potentially elsewhere, the Cypriot energy minister said Monday.

Minister Giorgos Papanastasiou said Monday he would soon visit Israel to hammer out a formal agreement. Once the deal is signed, the pipeline could be completed in 18 months.

When Najah Nabhan learned that her home was about to be bombed by Israel, she knew she had to get out quickly. What she didn't know was how she would get her four children with special needs out of the building in time.

With the help of neighbors, her children, who are unable to walk on their own, were carried to safety. But the airstrike flattened the three-story building, leaving 42 members of Nabhan's extended family homeless and leaving her children without the wheelchairs, crutches and medical equipment they need to move about.

For the first time, the United Nations will officially commemorate the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel on the 75th anniversary of their exodus — an action stemming from the U.N.'s partition of British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is headlining Monday's U.N. commemoration of what Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "catastrophe."

Syria ended over a decade of exile from the Arab League on Monday as officials participated in a preparatory session ahead of Friday's summit in Saudi Arabia.

"I... take this opportunity to welcome the Syrian Arab Republic to the League of Arab States," Saudi finance minister Mohammed al-Jadaan told the meeting, which was broadcast live by state TV channel Al Ekhbariya.