Israel's opposition leader testified for the prosecution on Monday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial in Jerusalem.

Yair Lapid, a former prime minister himself and a major Netanyahu rival, is testifying in one of three cases against Netanyahu. The indictment claims Netanyahu used his position of power to further Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan's interests in exhange for gifts, representing a conflict between the premier's public duties and personal friendship.

Iraq's parliament on Monday approved a budget that boosts public spending in the war-scarred nation and grants the federal government the upper hand over oil exports from the autonomous Kurdistan region.

The 198.9 trillion dinar ($153 billion) budget -- valid for three years though subject to future amendments -- also sets out record spending on public wages, investments and development projects.

The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria has announced that hundreds of fighters with the Islamic State group held in prisons around the region will be put on trial after their home countries refused to repatriate them.

The statement by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria said it still calls for the creation of an international tribunal to put those fighters on trial. It called on the United Nations, international rights groups and local organizations to help facilitate the trials.

One month into a much-touted program to heal the country's deep political rifts, Egyptian authorities have arrested dozens of dissidents, opposition supporters and football fans in a wave of repression.

Cairo inaugurated its long-delayed "national dialogue" on May 3, promising to give a platform to opposition voices that have been largely silenced since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took office in 2014.

Israeli forces on Friday killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and the army said, with the latter adding that a soldier was lightly wounded.

Mehdi Bayadsa, 29, was killed by "bullets from the occupation (Israel) near the Rantis military checkpoint, west of Ramallah", the ministry said in a statement.

A little white pill has given Syrian President Bashar Assad powerful leverage with his Arab neighbors, who have been willing to bring him out of pariah status in hopes he will stop the flow of highly addictive Captagon amphetamines out of Syria.

Western governments have been frustrated by the red-carpet treatment Arab countries have given Assad, fearing that their reconciliation will undermine the push for an end to Syria's long-running civil war.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has said after meeting with the visiting U.S. secretary of state that while the kingdom would welcome U.S. aid in building its civilian nuclear program, "there are others that are bidding."

Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan was responding to a question about recent news reports that Saudi Arabia is asking for U.S. aid in building its own nuclear program in exchange for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to undermine prospects for a Palestinian state, after talks in Saudi Arabia which linked normalization to peace efforts.

Blinken, after wrapping up a visit to the Gulf Arab monarchy criticized by rights groups, spoke by telephone with Netanyahu to discuss "deepening Israel's integration into the Middle East through normalization with countries in the region," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

U.N. investigators are compiling evidence on the development and use of chemical weapons by Islamic State extremists in Iraq after they seized about a third of the country in 2014, and are advancing work on the militant group's gender-based violence and crimes against children, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Christians and Yazidis, the head of the investigative team said Wednesday.

Christian Ritscher told the U.N. Security Council that survivors of a March 2016 chemical attack against Taza Khurmatu, a mainly Shia Turkmen town south of Kirkuk in northeast Iraq, were still deeply impacted when he visited earlier this year.

The sound of children and music echoed down a narrow basement hallway in Israel as they scrambled in a pool of balls, climbed on a jungle gym, munched popcorn and laughed.

The atmosphere changed suddenly on that Saturday last month, as at least a dozen religious men appeared and blocked the entrance, accusing the indoor playground of desecrating the Jewish sabbath by opening for business. Angry parents confronted them, scuffles broke out and in an instant, the center in this mixed city had become a flashpoint symbol of a larger battle between secular and religious Jews in Israel.