Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the expansion of Israeli settlements and ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank are taking Israel further away from peace with the Palestinians.

Yet, he stressed that the U.S.-Israel relationship remains "iron-clad," lauded American security commitments to the Jewish state and said the Biden administration will continue to promote normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly with Saudi Arabia.

Polls opened on Tuesday in Kuwait's seventh general election in just over a decade, following repeated political crises that have undermined parliament and stalled reforms.

More than 793,000 eligible voters will have the chance to determine the make-up of the 50-seat legislature in the only Gulf Arab state to have an elected parliament with powers to hold government to account.

The labor minister of Qatar, which faced intense scrutiny over its treatment of migrant workers in the run-up to last year's World Cup soccer tournament, was elected Monday as the president of the United Nations labor agency's annual conference.

Asian and Pacific nations proposed Ali bin Samikh al-Marri to lead the International Labor Agency's two-week conference in Geneva. Regional groups take turns nominating the meeting's chair.

A 3-year-old Palestinian boy who was shot by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank last week died of his wounds, Israeli hospital officials said Monday.

Mohammed al-Tamimi was shot in the head last Thursday near his village of Nebi Saleh while riding in a car with his father. He was airlifted to Israel's Sheba Hospital, which announced the boy's death.

Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday following a seven year closure, Tehran and a diplomatic source said, sealing a Chinese-brokered rapprochement deal announced in March.

Saudi Arabia severed relations with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran and consulate in the northwestern city of Mashhad were attacked during protests over Riyadh's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a new media advisor who has tweeted critically against President Joe Biden, the daily Haaretz reported.

The appointment comes at a time when U.S.-Israel relations are strained.

Saudi Arabia has welcomed Venzuelan President Nicolas Maduro on an official visit, reaching out to yet another U.S. foe as the oil-rich kingdom engages in a flurry of diplomacy.

Maduro arrived late Sunday in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, where he was greeted by Saudi officials, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

Fifty Islamic State-group jihadists and 168 Iraqi members of jihadist families were repatriated from Syria to Iraq on Saturday, an Iraqi official said.

A gunbattle along Israel's southern border with Egypt left three Israeli soldiers and an Egyptian officer dead, officials said. It was a rare instance of deadly violence along the frontier.

Israel said the Egyptian border guard crossed into Israel and killed the three soldiers before he was fatally shot by troops. Egypt said he had been chasing drug smugglers when he entered Israel.

When the Syrian Kurdish sisters Perwin and Norshean Salih sing about loss, it comes from the heart.

Aged in their early 20s, they have twice been driven from their family home in the northern Syrian town of Kobane -- once by the Islamic State group, and again by the threat of Turkish bombs.