Flash floods killed at least 13 people living in tents and container housing set up across Turkey’s quake-hit region yesterday, piling more pressure on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of crunch elections.

Hunger and malnutrition are rising sharply in Syria and more than half its population is short of food after 12 years of war, economic pressures and last month’s earthquake, the World Food Program said yesterday.

Saudi Arabia will watch Iran’s behaviour during the two-month window agreed upon to restore relations, Saudi columnists said yesterday, reflecting continued wariness in the longtime rivalry between the region’s Sunni Muslim and Shia powers.

Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinian gunmen in a pre-dawn firefight in the occupied West Bank, Israeli and Palestinian sources said yesterday, amid a surge in violence in the region.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations in a China-brokered deal that could have wide-ranging consequences but building on it, analysts say, will prove the main challenge.

Three Palestinian were shot dead after they fired at Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank near Nablus, the Israeli army said on Sunday, as violence in the region continued

Iran has finalised a deal to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, state media reported, as defence cooperation between the two countries deepens.

A settler killed an alleged assailant in the occupied West Bank yesterday after a gunman wounded three people in Tel Aviv, in a surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence that shows no sign of abating.

Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to restore ties and to reopen respective diplomatic missions after talks in China, state media in both countries reported yesterday, seven years after relations were severed.

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.

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

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.

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.