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Israeli PM gives security 'full freedom' to act after Tel Aviv attack

Israel's premier on Friday gave security agencies "full freedom" of operation to curb surging violence, after the latest deadly attack saw a Palestinian gunman kill two men in a popular nightlife area.

"There are not and will not be limits for this war," Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, speaking hours after the attack in Tel Aviv.

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Priest dies from stabbing on seaside promenade in Egypt

A knife-wielding man has mortally wounded a Coptic priest during an attack at the popular seaside promenade in Alexandria evening, Egypt's interior ministry said.

The ministry said the priest died while being treated for his wounds. It said the suspected attacker had been arrested.

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Israeli police kill Palestinian who shot dead two in Tel Aviv

Israeli security forces early Friday hunted down and killed a Palestinian man who had opened fire into a crowded bar in central Tel Aviv, killing two and wounding over 10 in an attack that caused scenes of mass panic in the heart of the bustling city.

It was the fourth deadly attack in Israel by Palestinians in three weeks, and came at a time of heightened tensions around the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Later in the day, thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank were set to enter Jerusalem for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan at the Al Aqsa Mosque.

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Spain PM in Morocco to mend ties after Western Sahara shift

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is set to meet with Moroccan King Mohammed VI on Thursday during a two-day visit to Rabat that seeks to mark an easing of diplomatic tensions centered on Morocco's disputed region of Western Sahara.

The King will invite Sánchez and his family to share in the Iftar meal to break the day's fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to a Spanish government official not authorized to be named in media reports.

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Yemen's president steps aside amid efforts to end war

Yemen's exiled president stepped aside and transferred his powers to a presidential council on Thursday, as international and regional efforts to end the country's long-running civil war gained momentum with a two-month truce.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, major players in the conflict appear to have played a role in President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's decision, quickly welcoming it with a pledge of $3 billion in aid. The head of the new council has close ties to Riyadh.

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Turkey suspends trial of Saudi suspects in Khashoggi killing

A Turkish court ruled Thursday to suspend the trial in absentia of 26 Saudis accused in the gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and for the case to be transferred to Saudi Arabia.

Kaghoggi, a United States resident who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone for an appointment to collect documents required for him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. He never emerged from the building.

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Tunisia hits back at Erdogan 'interference'

Tunisia has summoned Turkey's ambassador in protest against "interference", the foreign ministry said Wednesday, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized his counterpart in Tunis for dissolving the country's parliament.

President Kais Saied sacked the assembly last week, eight months after suspending it and seizing wide-ranging powers in a decisive blow against the democratic system born out of the country's 2011 uprising, which sparked the Arab Spring.

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Israeli firm's spyware used on Jordan activists, report says

Digital-rights researchers have concluded that the mobile phones of four Jordanian human rights activists were hacked over a two-year period with software made by the Israeli spyware company NSO Group.

Tuesday's findings by Front Line Defenders and Citizen Lab said at least some of the hackings appear to have been carried out by the Jordanian government. It was the latest in a series of reports linking NSO's Pegasus spyware software to abuses by authoritarian governments.

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Israel to allow West Bank women, kids, some men into Al-Aqsa

Israel will allow women, children and men over 40 from the West Bank to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday in an apparent bid to help calm tensions during the holy month of Ramadan.

The government said in a statement that it could further relax restrictions if things stay quiet. The use of incentives around the flashpoint shrine, built on a hilltop compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount, comes a year after flare-ups led to the Israel-Gaza war in May.

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UAE sentences Israeli woman to death, testing new ties

The United Arab Emirates has sentenced an Israeli woman to death for cocaine possession, in a major test of new relations between the Mideast countries.

Israel's Foreign Ministry confirmed that it is working on the case of the woman, identified by her lawyer as Fida Kiwan. News reports said she is a 43-year-old Haifa resident who owns a photography studio. She was sentenced on Monday, said attorney Tami Olman.

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