Israel faces yet another election as the Covid-19 pandemic rages, a new U.S. president is set to take power and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a corruption trial.

Israel's parliament dissolved on Wednesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fractured ruling coalition failed to pass a budget, triggering a fourth election in two years and renewing an unprecedented political crisis. 

French financial investigators have launched a preliminary enquiry in connection with property acquired by the family of late Yemen president Ali Abdallah Saleh, they said Tuesday.

The prosecutor's office confirmed a report that first appeared in the French daily Liberation and said it was probing possible embezzlement and suspected "ill gotten gains."

Israel's army said Tuesday it would reinforce its presence in the occupied West Bank as tensions surge following the alleged killing of a Jewish settler there. 

Israel was headed Tuesday for its fourth election in less than two years, with parliament set to dissolve at midnight after lawmakers rejected a last-ditch effort to salvage Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fractured ruling coalition.

Turkey's parliament on Tuesday authorized an 18-month extension of its troop deployment in Libya in support of the U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli, the Anadolu state news agency reported.

A top UAE official said Tuesday Qatari media were undermining efforts to end a three-year dispute between the emirate and four former allies ahead of a Gulf summit next month.

The first Israel-Morocco direct commercial flight landed in the North African kingdom Tuesday to mark the latest U.S.-brokered diplomatic normalization deal between the Jewish state and an Arab country.

The U.S. Justice Department announced charges Monday against a Libyan former intelligence agent who allegedly built the bomb that exploded aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland exactly 32 years ago.

A gunman opened fire on Israeli police in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday, before being chased down by officers who shot him dead, Israeli police said. 

"The suspect reached Huta gate (near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound) and shot at the police position with an (assault) rifle," a police statement said.