Iraq's parliament will meet on Thursday to "elect the president", a press release from speaker Mohammed al-Halbussi's office said on Tuesday, after months of political impasse.

More than a year after the last general election in Iraq, Halbussi's office said Thursday's parliamentary session would have "a single item on the agenda, the election of the President of the Republic".

Tunisians have been hit with soaring food prices and shortages of basic staples in recent weeks, threatening to turn simmering discontent in the North African country — the cradle of the Arab Spring protests — into larger turmoil.

Sugar, vegetable oil, rice and even bottled water periodically disappear from supermarkets and grocery stores. People stand in line for hours for these food essentials that have long been subsidized and are now increasingly available in rations only. When they do appear on the shelves, many people cannot afford to pay the staggering price for them.

A 12-year-old Palestinian boy has died after being shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers during a September army raid in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Mahmoud Samoudi was shot in the abdomen on Sept. 28 during an army raid in Jenin, a refugee camp and stronghold of armed Palestinians.

Israeli police arrested at least three Palestinian suspects Sunday in connection with a deadly shooting at a Jerusalem checkpoint, as security forces searched for the suspected gunman.

The shooter opened fire on a military checkpoint in east Jerusalem late Saturday, killing a female Israeli soldier and wounding three other soldiers, one of them seriously. The Israeli military identified the soldier as 18-year-old Noa Lazar.

Heavy clashes between Houthi rebel troops and Yemen's pro-government forces have killed at least 8 people, a security official confirmed. The fresh round of violence comes amid heightened tensions following last week's failure to extend a cease-fire between the warring sides.

The official said exchanges of fire broke out late Thursday night in the contested western area of Yafa, killing four troops from either side and injuring five others. Local witnesses said both Houthi troops and forces under the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the United Arab Emirates and is a major pillar of the Saudi coalition fighting in Yemen, deployed machine guns and mortars during the clashes.

The severed head and decapitated torso of a 25-year-old Palestinian were discovered on the side of a road in the occupied West Bank, police said Friday, confirming gruesome details of a killing that shocked Palestinian society.

But accounts that the victim, Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, was a gay man who feared persecution for his sexuality and had sought asylum in Israel two years ago turned the terrible crime into a socially and politically explosive case.

U.S. forces killed three senior Islamic State leaders in two separate military operations in Syria Thursday, including a rare ground raid in a portion of the northeast that is controlled by the Syrian regime, U.S. officials said.

According to officials, U.S. special operations forces conducted a raid near the village of Qamishli, killing IS insurgent Rakkan Wahid al Shamman, wounding another and capturing two others.

U.S. President Joe Biden has effectively acknowledged the failure of one of his biggest and most humiliating foreign policy gambles: a fist-bump with the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, the crown prince associated with human rights abuses.

Biden's awkward encounter with Mohammed bin Salman in July was a humbling attempt to mend relations with the world's most influential oil power at a time when the US. was seeking its help in opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting surge in oil prices.

A U.S. airborne operation involving multiple helicopters left one person dead in a government-controlled area of Syria's northeast, Syrian state TV reported Thursday.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was released from a Jerusalem hospital on Thursday, his party said, a day after he was admitted complaining of chest pains.

Netanyahu, 72, was taken to the city's Shaarei Tzedek hospital a day earlier after feeling unwell at synagogue services for the Jewish fasting day of Yom Kippur.