Spotlight
Iran warned Israel on Monday not to cross its "red lines" in the Gulf in the final days of Donald Trump's presidency and following a reported Israeli submarine deployment.

Top Gulf Arab officials have held a virtual meeting to bolster "cooperation" ahead of a summit next month amid efforts to end a rift between a Saudi-led alliance and Qatar.

Egyptian security officials have met with representatives of Libya's Government of National Accord, a first delegation in nearly six years from Cairo, considered a backer of a rival camp in the conflict-hit country.

Saudi Arabia has extended its suspension of commercial passenger flights by at least one week and possibly two amid concerns over a new variant of the coronavirus.

A Saudi court on Monday handed prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul a prison term of five years and eight months for terrorism-related crimes, but a suspended sentence will allow her release within months, her family said.

Jordan on Sunday confirmed two cases of a particularly infectious coronavirus variant in a man and his wife who had arrived from Britain.

Hamas has denounced as "barbaric" Israeli strikes it said damaged a Gaza children's hospital, while Israel's army said it was responding to rocket fire from the enclave.

Controversial Tunisian media mogul and former presidential candidate Nabil Karoui has been rearrested in connection with an affair involving money laundering and tax evasion, a judicial spokesman said.

The next round of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government will be held in Qatar from next month, a top official said Sunday, despite President Ashraf Ghani's recent calls for them to be moved home.

Turkey's defense minister said that any attack by eastern Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar on its personnel in the North African country would be met with force.
