Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said he will visit Saudi Arabia next month, the Turkish leader's first since the 2018 murder of Riyadh critic Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

Kuwait has urged its citizens to leave several European countries including Britain, France and Germany because of a surge in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

"False intelligence" and a family dispute were the causes behind an Iraqi security operation last week that killed 20 people from the same family, the judiciary said Monday.

Tunisia's detained former justice minister Noureddine Bhiri is refusing food or medication after his transfer to hospital, a member of a delegation that visited him said on Monday.

Militants attacked a bus carrying soldiers on a desert highway in central Syria, killing five troops and wounding 20, state media reported Monday.

The state news agency SANA said the attack happened on Sunday night in a government-controlled area. The report quoted an unnamed official saying the militants launched rockets at the bus traveling in the Palmyra desert, then followed it with gunfire from an anti-aircraft gun.

The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq on Monday shot down two armed drones targeting a compound at Baghdad airport hosting its personnel, a coalition official said.

Yemeni rebels have seized an Emirati-flagged vessel in the Red Sea, the insurgents and a Saudi-led coalition said on Monday, giving contrasting explanations for the latest escalation in a seven-year war.

Hackers targeted the website of an Israeli newspaper on Monday, the anniversary of the 2020 killing of a top Iranian general, replacing its content with an image threatening a site associated with Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons program.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the hacking. The image posted on the Jerusalem Post's website depicts a missile coming down from a fist bearing a ring long associated with Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq two years ago.

A Palestinian prisoner languishing in hospital after an extensive hunger strike teetered close to death Sunday, sparking international concern and Palestinian demands that Israel release him from detention without charges.

Hisham Abu Hawash, a 40-year-old member of the Islamic Jihad militant movement, began refusing food in August to protest Israel holding him without charges or trial. 

Egyptian officials Sunday pushed for Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip to rein in hostilities and adhere to a cease-fire in place since the war in May.

The Egyptian efforts came a day after Hamas militants launched rockets into the Mediterranean Sea off central Israel, prompting Israel to carry out airstrikes on militant positions in Gaza early Sunday. No casualties were reported.