The United Arab Emirates has sentenced an Israeli woman to death for cocaine possession, in a major test of new relations between the Mideast countries.

Israel's Foreign Ministry confirmed that it is working on the case of the woman, identified by her lawyer as Fida Kiwan. News reports said she is a 43-year-old Haifa resident who owns a photography studio. She was sentenced on Monday, said attorney Tami Olman.

An Israeli lawmaker quit the government's wafer-thin ruling coalition over a religious dispute on Wednesday, throwing the fragile alliance into disarray without a majority in parliament.

Backbencher Idit Silman's departure raises the possibility of new parliamentary elections less than a year after the government took office. While Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's government remains in power, it is now hamstrung in the 120-seat parliament and will likely struggle to function.

The U.S. military could have done more to limit civilian casualties and damage during the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa that marked the Islamic State's fall in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon.

At the end of the nearly five-month battle to free the city from IS, "60 to 80 percent" of it was "uninhabitable" and resentment of the population was directed at the liberators, said a report by the research center RAND Corporation. 

Kuwait's government resigned on Tuesday, three months after it was sworn in, state media reported, amid escalating disputes with parliament.

The Gulf emirate's prime minister, Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah, submitted the cabinet's resignation to Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the official KUNA news agency said.

Yemen's warring parties on Tuesday traded accusations of violating a ceasefire agreement, three days after it went into effect at the start of Ramadan.

The internationally recognized government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, and the Iran-backed Huthi rebels have been locked in a violent power struggle since 2014, when the insurgents seized the capital Sanaa.

A judge has certified the Iraqi government's extradition request for a Phoenix driving school owner on charges that he participated in the killings of two police officers 15 years ago in the Iraqi city of Fallujah as the leader of an al-Qaida group, sending the extradition decision to Washington to decide.

In the decision issued Friday in Arizona, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Morrissey concluded there was probable cause that Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, who came to the United States as a refugee in 2009 and became a U.S. citizen in 2015, participated in the killings carried out by masked men in June 2006 and October 2006.

Israeli police have arrested several Palestinians accused of throwing rocks and other objects at officers outside the contested Old City of Jerusalem as tensions flared during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Police said officers arrested eight people suspected of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers during Ramadan revelries outside the Damascus Gate. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Trade in the amphetamine-type stimulant captagon in the Middle East grew exponentially in 2021 to top $5 billion, posing an increasing health and security risk to the region, a report said.

Some captagon production facilities, albeit small ones, are located in Lebanon, already the world's third-largest hashish exporter after Morocco and Afghanistan.

Rights groups on Monday said an Egyptian request for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must require Cairo to expand social protection, tackle corruption and ensure judicial independence.

Two fuel ships have entered war-torn Yemen's port of Hodeida, the first shipment in months, the rebels who control the city said Monday, after a U.N.-brokered truce went into effect.