Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that arch foe Iran's renewal of uranium enrichment proves that it is seeking to build nuclear arms despite its denials.

State media in the Islamic republic said Monday it had started the process of enriching uranium to 20 percent purity at its Fordow facility, going well beyond the threshold set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

Gunmen killed at least 15 people in Syria, mostly government soldiers travelling on a bus in the second such road ambush in recent days, a war monitor said Monday.

The U.S. reversed a decision to bring an aircraft carrier home from the Gulf Sunday, with the Pentagon saying that due to "recent threats" by Iran the USS Nimitz would stay in position.

The Nimitz has been patrolling Gulf waters since late November, but in a statement issued on December 31, acting US defense secretary Christopher C. Miller ordered the vessel to "transit directly home to complete a nearly 10-month deployment."

Saudi Arabia on Sunday announced the reopening of borders and the resumption of international flights after a two-week suspension aimed to stem the spread of a new Covid-19 strain.

Egypt has approved the use of a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm with its rollout to start later in January, the health minister said.

Israel said Sunday two million people will have received a two-dose Covid-19 vaccination by the end of January, a pace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasts is the world's fastest.

The Gulf crisis, which has pitted regional players against Qatar, could be moving closer to resolution as the key countries prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Thousands of Iraqi mourners Sunday condemned the "American occupiers", one year after a U.S. drone strike killed Iran's revered commander Qasem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — Yemen's prime minister on Saturday said that a missile attack on the airport in Aden was meant "to eliminate" the country's new government as it arrived in the key southern city — a daring assault which he blamed on Iran-backed rebels.

A car bomb near a vegetable market in northeastern Syria killed five people on Saturday in the Turkish-held border town of Ras al-Ain, a war monitor said.