Syria has condemned the European Union's new sanctions on Damascus over making and trafficking an amphetamine saying the move was based on lies.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry statement came a day after the EU imposed sanctions on several Syrians, including members of President Bashar Assad's family, blaming them for the production and trafficking of narcotics, notably the amphetamine Captagon.

Syrians living on opposite sides of the largely frozen battle lines dividing their country are watching the accelerating normalization of ties between the government of Bashar Assad and Syria's neighbors through starkly different lenses.

In government-held Syria, residents struggling with ballooning inflation, fuel and electricity shortages hope the rapprochement will bring more trade and investment and ease a crippling economic crisis.

Russia's defense minister has hosted his counterparts from Iran, Syria and Turkey on Tuesday for talks that were part of the Kremlin's efforts to help broker a rapprochement between the Turkish and Syrian governments.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the talks focused on "practical steps to strengthen security in the Syrian Arab Republic and to normalize Syrian-Turkish relations."

Saudi Arabia has announced the seizure of more than 12 million amphetamine pills hidden in a shipment of pomegranate fruit, amid a crackdown on the widely used captagon drug.

Authorities thwarted "an attempt to smuggle 12,729,000 tablets of amphetamine" concealed in the shipment passing through the Jeddah port, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

A ship carrying 1,687 civilians from more than 50 countries fleeing violence in Sudan docked in Saudi Arabia Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, the largest evacuation effort by the Gulf kingdom so far.

Saudi Arabia has received several rounds of evacuees by air and sea since fighting broke out in Africa's third-biggest country on April 15, part of what analysts describe as an effort to position itself as a major player in responding to regional crises.

Israel's foreign minister has called on Jordan to take action to bring to justice a Jordanian lawmaker who was arrested in Israel for allegedly trying to smuggle what appears to have been dozens of guns into the West Bank.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Israel was still investigating the incident, in which the legislator, Imad Al-Adwan, is accused of attempting to bring in weapons and gold illegally. Cohen called it an "irresponsible, criminal act" that cannot go unpunished

The European Union has slapped sanctions on several Syrians, including members of President Bashar Assad's family, accusing them of making and trafficking an amphetamine that enriches and helps to prop up the regime.

Asset freezes and travel bans were imposed on 25 people and 8 "entities" — most of them companies — at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

Israel marked its Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of militant attacks on Tuesday against the backdrop of some of the deepest political divisions in its history and soaring tensions with Palestinians.

Memorial Day is one of the most solemn moments on Israel's national calendar, in honor of its 24,213 war dead and 4,255 attack victims. People came to a standstill when a two-minute siren sounded late in the morning. Motorists and pedestrians halted in the street, stopped their cars and stood with heads bowed. Bereaved families visited cemeteries and attended ceremonies while television and radio programming shifted to somber music and documentaries about slain soldiers.

Clutching overstuffed suitcases, bleary-eyed civilians including Lebanese described a harrowing escape from violence-wracked Sudan across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, sobbing at memories of air strikes and urban combat.

Elderly women in wheelchairs and babies asleep in their parents' arms were among nearly 200 people from 14 countries who disembarked from a naval frigate in the coastal city of Jeddah on Monday night after daring –- and draining –- journeys to safety.

A car ramming attack Monday near a popular Jerusalem market wounded five people and the Palestinian driver was shot and killed, Israeli police said, as the country memorialized its fallen soldiers.

The statement said the driver of the car was shot and killed at the scene near the bustling, open-air Mahane Yehuda market. A 70-year-old man was in serious condition, police said. It was the latest bloodshed in a yearlong wave of near-daily violence that has gripped the region.