Residents of the city of Kadugli in southwest Sudan began fleeing the city on Thursday as tensions escalated between the army and a powerful rebel group, threatening to open another area of conflict in the country’s ongoing war, witnesses said.

Enormous crowds of worshippers thronged Mecca, Islam's holiest city, today for the biggest hajj pilgrimage in years, with more than two million expected to brave the scorching Saudi Arabian heat

Israeli forces yesterday demolished the home of a Palestinian accused of killing a soldier in the occupied West Bank, which has been hit by a new outbreak of violence.

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight on Tuesday, torching buildings and cars in apparent retaliation for the killing by Hamas of four Israelis near a settlement the day before, residents and officials said.

An Iranian intelligence officer has claimed that the United States and France are among some 20 countries involved in nationwide protests last year sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Iraq yesterday unveiled a 2,800-year-old stone tablet returned by Italy, as the war-ravaged country works to recover from abroad antiquities looted from its territory.

The Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia on Sunday announced that Monday will mark the first day of Dhu Al Hijjah, after sighting the crescent moon

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian fighter in the occupied West Bank yesterday, Palestinian officials said, as the army said it came under fire during an operation to demolish an apartment.

Sweden should not expect a change of attitude from Ankara on its Nato membership bid at the Western alliance’s summit next month unless it prevents anti-Turkey protests in Stockholm,

China is willing to play a positive role to help the Palestinians achieve internal reconciliation and promote peace talks with Israel, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Palestinian counterpart in Beijing yesterday.

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in a West Bank raid while four Israelis were injured in a separate shooting incident, as fresh violence hit the territory yesterday, officials said.

Iran yesterday said it has continued indirect negotiations with the Unites States through the Sultanate of Oman over its nuclear deal and a possible prisoner swap.

Iran’s supreme leader said yesterday that reaching a deal with the West over Tehran’s disputed nuclear work was possible if the country’s nuclear infrastructure remained intact, state media quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying.

Israeli forces yesterday killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and the army said, with the latter adding that a soldier was lightly wounded.

Five Arab Israelis were shot dead at a car wash in the north yesterday, police said, amid the worst crime wave in years to hit the minority sector.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Gulf Arab officials in Saudi Arabia yesterday at a time of rapidly shifting alliances following the oil-rich kingdom’s rapprochement with Iran.

Turkey’s journalists’ association yesterday criticised fines imposed by the country’s media regulator on four pro-opposition television channels during the election campaign, saying they “penalise the public’s right to information”.

Iran presented what officials described as its first domestically-made hypersonic ballistic missile yesterday, the official IRNA news agency reported, an announcement likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran’s missile capabilities.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to Saudi Arabia yesterday to strengthen strained ties with the long-time ally as the oil-rich kingdom forges closer relations with America’s rivals.

Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia today following a seven-year closure, a diplomatic source told AFP, sealing a Chinese-brokered rapprochement deal announced in March.