French President Emmanuel Macron will make his first official trip to Iraq on Wednesday, government sources in Baghdad told AFP, to signal solidarity with the crisis-hit country.

The first direct commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday, with a U.S.-Israeli delegation on board, after the two countries struck an accord to normalize ties.

The three-year-old crisis pitting Qatar against several Middle East nations returns to the UN's top court this week with hearings in a case between Doha and the United Arab Emirates.

They arrived in unprecedented numbers, pushing a strained Sweden to shut its borders as anti-immigration sentiment flared. Five years later, Syrians are still trying to integrate, some more successfully than others.

Israel is in secret talks with several Arab states on establishing ties, in addition to its U.S.-backed deal struck with the UAE, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

"There are many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with the state of Israel," he said on the eve of Israel’s first commercial flight to the United Arab Emirates.

Egyptian authorities have arrested a new suspect involved in the alleged gang rape of a women in 2014, the public prosecution said on Sunday.

Israeli tanks hit Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the army said, as Palestinian balloon attacks across the border continued despite international truce efforts.

Thousands of tearful Shiite pilgrims wearing gloves and face masks  flooded Iraq's holy city of Karbala Sunday to mark Ashura, one of the largest Muslim gatherings since the Covid-19 pandemic started.

Ashura, on the 10th day of the mourning month of Muharram, commemorates the killing of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson Hussein at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD -- the defining moment of Islam's confessional schism.

The United Arab Emirates announced Saturday it had repealed legislation imposing a boycott of Israel after the two countries struck a US-brokered deal to normalise relations.

Libya's UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) on Friday said the interior minister had been suspended after militia gunmen fired on peaceful protesters last week.