Forces of Yemen's internationally recognized government have reclaimed the entire southern province of Shabwa from Iran-backed Houthi rebels, officials said Tuesday. The development is a blow to the rebels after government forces earlier this month made significant advances in the country's south.

The government, aided by allies from a pro-government militia, the Giants Brigades, and airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition, pushed through Shabwa this month, retaking the entire province in a 10-day battle, officials said.

The tremor of a 6.6-magnitude quake that hit off the west coast of Cyprus early Tuesday, was felt in Lebanon.

There were no reports of casualties or structural damage, although the quake was felt around the region with reports from as far away as Turkey, Egypt, Israel and Lebanon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Libyan security forces raided and violently broke up a protest sit-in by migrants outside a shuttered U.N. community center in the capital of Tripoli, activists and migrants said Monday.

The troops came overnight, smashed up the protest site, arresting hundreds, said activist Tarik Lamloum. Those detained were sent to a detention center in the nearby town of Ain Zara. Others managed to flee from the raid, he said.

Israel is considering whether to extend the detention of a 17-year-old Palestinian with a rare neuromuscular disorder who has been held without charge for nearly a year in what authorities refer to as administrative detention, his father said Monday.

The use of administrative detention has galvanized demonstrations across the occupied West Bank in recent months as several adult prisoners have gone on hunger strike to protest being held for months or years without charge. Some have secured their release after months of fasting that left them hospitalized and at risk of permanent neurological damage.

A Polish diplomat charged with improving contacts with Jews worldwide has been fired after he criticized his own government's approach to regulating Holocaust speech, the Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Jaroslaw Nowak, the plenipotentiary for contacts with the Jewish diaspora described a Holocaust speech law passed by his country's ruling party as "stupid."

Saudi authorities have released a princess detained in the kingdom under mysterious circumstances for nearly three years, her supporters said.

The princess, Basmah bint Saud, a daughter of Saudi Arabia's second king, disappeared in March 2019 and landed in a notorious Saudi prison without charge, she wrote on social media at the time.

Khader al-Najjar has been unable to leave the Gaza Strip since he returned to the Palestinian territory 25 years ago, not even to seek medical treatment for a spinal ailment or to bid farewell to his mother, who died in Jordan last year.

The reason: Israel refused to allow the Palestinian Authority to issue him a national ID. That made it virtually impossible to leave, even before Israel and Egypt imposed a punishing blockade when the Hamas militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Two former Israeli prime ministers faced off in a Tel Aviv courtroom as Benjamin Netanyahu's defamation suit against Ehud Olmert got underway on Monday.

Netanyahu, his wife and son appeared in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's court for the opening of their case against Olmert, Netanyahu's predecessor as Israel's prime minister.

Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states are visiting Beijing for meetings with officials from the world's second largest economy, a leading consumer of oil and source of foreign investment.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday gave no details of the agendas for the visits, but said they were expected to "deepen relations between the two sides."

Iraq's new parliament has reelected its speaker for a second term, the first step toward forming a new government after a general election whose results have been contested by powerful Iran-backed factions.

In a reflection of tensions, the meeting was marked by disarray, with the eldest member of Parliament who was leading the session being evacuated to the hospital apparently due to the stress.