Israel's president on Sunday rejected parliament speaker Benny Gantz's request for more time to form a government, a task that could now fall to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ex-military chief Gantz was given the mandate to form a government four weeks ago by President Reuven Rivlin following Israel's March 2 election, the country's third inconclusive vote in a year. 

Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas said they have arrested a Palestinian man on charges of normalizing ties with Israelis online, after footage seemingly from a Zoom call was shared online.

War-torn Yemen reported its first case of coronavirus Friday in a southern province under the control of the government, raising fears of an outbreak in a country with few resources left to respond.

The Saudi-led coalition said it began observing a unilateral ceasefire in war-wracked Yemen on Thursday to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but Huthi rebels dismissed the initiative as political maneuvering.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh nominated spy chief Mustafa Kadhemi on Thursday as the country's third prime minister-designate this year, moments after predecessor Adnan Zurfi ended his bid to form a government.

The Riyadh-led military coalition fighting Yemen's Huthi rebels has declared a two-week ceasefire in the country starting Thursday in a bid to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

To some, Israeli Health Minister Yaakov Litzman is guilty of a "catastrophic failure" of leadership for not urgently conveying the coronavirus threat to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that elected him.

Haggard and dishevelled from the stress of making ends meet, day labourers line up in Cairo for food parcels after losing their jobs to the sharp downturn caused by the coronavirus.

At the construction site in Tel Aviv, Jamal Salman and the other Palestinian workers wore gloves and masks, and their employer provided apartments for them to stay overnight.

But his wife, alarmed by the news about the coronavirus outbreak in Israel, called him every night from the West Bank, begging him to come home. He came back early this week.

Human rights groups urged three Gulf Arab states Wednesday to lift bans on free internet calls to help their large migrant workforces stay in touch during the coronavirus pandemic.