Three Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank yesterday, the Palestinian health ministry said, with an Israeli official saying they had opened fire first.

A blast tore through the Taliban governor's office in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province on Thursday, killing him and two others, police said.

Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed a sphinx statue “with a smiley face and two dimples” near the Hathor Temple, one of the country’s best preserved ancient sites, the tourism and antiquities ministry said.

Seven people including several civilians were killed yesterday when a drone strike targeted a weapons factory belonging to Iran-backed factions in government-held eastern Syria, a war monitor said.

The nearly eight-year-old US deployment to Syria to combat Islamic State is still worth the risk, the top US military officer said on Saturday, after a rare, unannounced visit to a dusty base in the country’s northeast to meet US troops.

Iran has agreed to reconnect surveillance cameras at several nuclear sites and increase the pace of inspections, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday evening.

Residents yesterday searched through the remains of their charred homes after a fuel storage depot fire in Jakarta left at least 17 people dead, including two children.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday slammed the world’s rich countries and energy giants for throttling poor nations with “predatory” interest rates and crippling fuel prices.

A massive earthquake and aftershocks in February caused an estimated $5.1 billion in direct physical damage in Syria, the World Bank has said.

Scientists have discovered a hidden passage inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid, the authorities have announced.

Turkey’s opposition alliance fractured yesterday after one of the leaders refused to endorse a joint candidate against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Iranian authorities yesterday arrested four people in connection with an assault on a woman outside a girls’ school targeted in a wave of poisoning attacks, a news agency said.

Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran were hospitalised yesterday after a mysterious poisoning, an Iranian news agency reported, the latest in a spate of suspected attacks in the Islamic republic.

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yesterday counted the cost of deadly violence and arson by Israeli settlers targeting a town where two Israeli brothers were killed.

Jordan hosted a meeting between top Israeli and Palestinian officials yesterday to try to halt surging violence, an official said, as Washington and its Arab allies seek to defuse tensions that have led to concern of a wider escalation.

Turkey has begun work to rebuild homes following this month’s devastating earthquakes, as the combined death toll in Turkey and Syria surpassed 50,000.

A magnitude 5.5 earthquake struck Central Turkey yesterday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.

An Iranian general warned his country is still seeking to kill former US president Donald Trump and his secretary of state Mike Pompeo in revenge for assassinating top commander Qasem Soleimani. Tehran has repeatedly vowed to avenge the killing of

Israel launched air strikes on Gaza in return for rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave yesterday, a day after the deadliest Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank in nearly 20 years.

Israel launched air strikes on Gaza in return for rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave yesterday, a day after the deadliest Israeli