As adversity strikes in the form of the coronavirus pandemic, Algeria has found a helping hand in China, an old friend and the top exporter to Africa's largest country.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday gave the green light for soldiers to be deployed in a mostly ultra-Orthodox Jewish city seen as the center of Israel's novel coronavirus outbreak.

Workers at the Tel Ashomer military base near Tel Aviv were on Thursday busy making face masks and visors as Israel tries to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The new coronavirus is forcing more top Israeli officials into isolation after the country's health minister, who has had frequent contact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tested positive, the Health Ministry said Thursday.

The Middle East has over 78,000 confirmed cases of the virus, most of those in Iran, and over 3,500 deaths. In Lebanon, the Philippines ambassador, Bernardita Catalla, died of complications from the coronavirus Thursday, the Philippines said. Lebanon has recorded 479 infected cases, and 14 deaths.

Iran said Thursday it "only acts in self-defence" after President Donald Trump warned it against attacks on US troops in Iraq, as a new war of words heated up despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The war in Syria killed 103 civilians in March, marking the lowest monthly non-combatant death toll since the start of the conflict in 2011, a war monitor said Wednesday.

Iran warned the US Wednesday that it was leading the Middle East to disaster in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic after it deployed Patriot air defence missiles to Iraq.

Israeli warplanes flew at low altitude Tuesday over the Lebanese regions of Metn and Keserwan, sparking a state of panic, state-run National News Agency reported.

Syria’s state news agency SANA later reported that Syrian air defenses were engaging “hostile targets” over the central Syrian region of Homs.

Libya's National Oil Company has announced that two employees had been freed after being kidnapped from a southern Libyan oil field in July 2018.

The Saudi-led military coalition has carried out multiple air strikes on Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa in retaliation for missile strikes on Riyadh.