Saudi Arabia is preparing to open its first alcohol store in the capital Riyadh which will serve exclusively non-Muslim diplomats, according to a source familiar with the plans and a document.

Iraq accused the United States of contributing to a “reckless escalation” of violence in the region after American air strikes targeted Iran-backed groups in the country yesterday.

Saudi Arabia plans to allow the sale of alcohol to non-Muslim diplomats for the first time, two sources familiar with the plan told AFP today

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in Israel’s worst day of losses in Gaza, the military said yesterday, as it claimed to have encircled southern Gaza’s main city in a major ground assault.

Israel has proposed to Hamas via Qatari and Egyptian mediators a pause in fighting of up to two months as part of a deal to free all the hostages being held in Gaza, the US news site Axios reported Monday.

Israeli tanks storming southern Gaza’s main city reached the gates of two hospitals yesterday, cutting residents off from trauma care as the bloodiest fighting of the new year tore through areas sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced.

Israel’s plan to destroy Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is not working and the European Union must pursue efforts to create a “two-state solution” despite Israeli opposition, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said yesterday.

At least nine bodies have washed ashore on Turkey’s southern coast in the past week, local media reported yesterday, with officials suspecting that most belonged to migrants who went missing in December.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry yesterday said the death toll in the Palestinian territory breached 25,000 as Israel pushed its southward offensive and renewed bombardment in the north.

Iran yesterday blamed Israel for a strike on Damascus, saying it “reserves the right to respond” after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said four of its members had died.

Israel is pressing its push southwards of the Gaza strip whose health ministry reported a surging death toll.

Medical aid workers are only able to help with a tiny fraction of Gaza’s humanitarian needs as conditions there deteriorate following nearly 15 weeks of war, staff from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday.

Israel bombarded southern Gaza yesterday after it publicly sparred with its main ally the United States over the creation of a Palestinian state, a step which Washington sees as the only pathway to a lasting peace.

A UN human rights official yesterday accused Israel of mistreating Palestinian detainees in Gaza, saying he had met men who had described being held for weeks, beaten and blindfolded, with some released in diapers.

The United Nations said yesterday that thousands of babies had been born in conditions “beyond belief” in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began more than three months ago.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani yesterday repeated his call for the US-led international anti-jihadist coalition to depart his country amid soaring regional tensions over the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Israeli forces advancing into the southern Gaza Strip’s main city pounded areas near the biggest hospital still functioning in the enclave yesterday, sending patients and residents fleeing a battle they feared would lay the city to waste.

The death toll from Pakistan strikes on a border region in Iran's southeast rose to nine, state media reported on Thursday, up from seven earlier

Israel stepped up strikes on the south of Gaza yesterday, ahead of the expected delivery of medicines for hostages in exchange for humanitarian aid under a newly brokered deal.

Kuwait’s new emir announced an era of “reform” as a government including the first foreign minister from outside the ruling family took the oath of office yesterday.