Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday emerged from his toughest election test unbowed and in a strong position to extend two decades of his Islamic-rooted rule by another five years in a historic May 28 runoff.

Turkey appeared headed for a runoff presidential election, with the parties of both Tayyip Erdogan and opposition rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu claiming the lead but sources in both camps admit they may not clear the 50 percent threshold to win outright.

Calm returned to Gaza yesterday as a fragile ceasefire ending five days of fighting held, leaving Palestinians and Israelis to count the cost of cross-border fire which has killed dozens.

Israel yesterday ruled out an immediate truce in Gaza, saying the onus was on Palestinian militants to stop launching rockets from an arsenal it suggested could be depleted within days, while its aircraft kept up strikes in the enclave.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday led prayers at Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia mosque before entering the election battle of his political life against a powerful secular rival.

Israel and Gaza militants traded heavy fire yesterday as hopes faded of securing a truce to end days of fighting that have killed dozens, all but one of them Palestinian.

Israel killed the head of Islamic Jihad's rocket force and his deputy, pressing an operation that has cost 30 lives in Gaza including women and children, while Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes have inflicted the first fatality in Israel.

Israel and Gaza militants traded more heavy fire yesterday, the third day of the worst escalation of violence in months that has killed 26 people in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received an invitation to next week’s Arab summit in Saudi Arabia, the presidency said yesterday, the first such invitation since the country’s war began. The pan-Arab body had suspended Damascus in November 2011

Iran executed seven men in two prisons outside Tehran on drugs and rape charges yesterday, a rights group said, accelerating what activists describe as a hanging spree over the past two weeks.

Israel and Gaza militants traded cross-border fire yesterday, renewing deadly violence a day after Israeli strikes killed 15 people in the Palestinian territory.

Israel launched pre-dawn air strikes on Tuesday against the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, its military announced, with the health ministry of the Hamas-controlled territory saying 12 people were killed.

Israel yesterday transferred a Jordanian member of parliament to Amman’s authorities, weeks after arresting him for attempting to smuggle pistols, rifles and gold into the occupied West Bank, officials said.

Iran yesterday hanged Swedish-Iranian dissident Habib Chaab for “terrorism”, drawing condemnation from Sweden, in the Islamic republic’s latest use of the death penalty against dual nationals.

Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yesterday, the Palestinian health ministry said, as the army claimed to have targeted the perpetrators of a “shooting attack”.

Khader Adnan, who was affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, died in an Israeli prison today after an 87-day hunger strike, Israeli prison authorities said.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has introduced e-visa, eliminating visa stickers for work, visits, and transit

Three civilians were wounded yesterday in Israeli air strikes near the Syrian city of Homs, state media reported, with a war monitor saying a Hezbollah munitions depot was hit.

Saudi Arabia and Iran will reopen embassies in each other’s capitals “within days,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Friday in a sign of warming relations after the two countries closed their missions seven years ago.

Warplanes on bombing raids drew heavy anti-aircraft fire over Khartoum yesterday as fierce fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitaries entered a third week, violating a renewed truce.