The Israeli army said it intercepted rocket fire from Lebanon yesterday, a day after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians inside Islam’s third-holiest site drew warnings of retaliation from around the region.

Israeli police entered Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque in force before dawn yesterday and clashed with worshippers, drawing condemnation from Arab countries and a furious reaction in the occupied West Bank and crossborder strikes in Gaza.

Iran has named an ambassador to the United Arab Emirates nearly eight years after his predecessor left, as a thaw in relations with the Gulf Arab states picks up pace.

Iran yesterday welcomed a US call to help end the long-running conflict in Yemen by backing a peace process, one year after a United Nations-brokered truce dramatically reduced fighting.

The incident sparked protests across the occupied West Bank and the Israeli military said nine rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel after sirens blared in southern towns

Twenty Iranian schoolgirls were hospitalised yesterday after the latest in a mysterious wave of poisoning attacks that have sickened thousands of pupils, state media reported.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians yesterday in a morning raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, in what the army described as “counterterrorism activity”.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler on a brief visit late on Sunday, state media said, as the North African country grapples with severe economic difficulties.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II expressed on Sunday a commitment to “safeguard” Jerusalem’s holy sites, in a meeting in Amman with Muslim and Christian religious leaders from the city.

A suspected assailant was killed by Israeli soldiers after a West Bank car ramming on Saturday night, the army said, in an escalation that threatens to end a relative lull during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan so far.

Saudi Arabia is planning to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to an Arab League summit that Riyadh is hosting in May, three sources familiar with the plans said, a move that would formally end Syria’s regional isolation.

Five Syrian soldiers were wounded in the latest Israeli air strike on Syria, state news agency SANA reported yesterday, with Iran saying two Revolutionary Guards officers died in earlier attacks.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Cairo yesterday, a first since Syria’s civil war broke out over a decade ago, Shoukry’s office said.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a “dialogue partner”, state media reported yesterday, the latest indication of closer political ties with China.

At least eight Bangladeshi umrah pilgrims died while 18 others were injured in a bus crash in Saudi Arabia, according to a press release issued by the foreign ministry

A bus ferrying pilgrims to the holy city of Makkah burst into flames after a collision on a bridge on Monday, killing 22 people and injuring more than two dozen others

The Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers have vowed to meet before the end of the holy month of Ramadan to implement a landmark reconciliation deal, the two countries said yesterday.

The hard-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced more protests and a general strike yesterday against its controversial push to overhaul the justice system.

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has urged pilgrims to perform umrah only once during Ramadan to reduce overcrowding

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday sacked Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, triggering mass protests, a day after Gallant broke ranks with the government and urged a halt to a highly contested plan to overhaul the judicial system..As news of the dismissal spread, tens of thou