U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that America's defense partnership with Egypt is an "essential pillar" of Washington's commitment to the Middle East.

Austin made the remark on Twitter after touching down in Cairo on the latest leg of his Middle East tour. He was greeted by senior Egyptian military officials at the Cairo airport.

The second astronaut from the United Arab Emirates is still adjusting to life off the planet, after rocketing to the International Space Station last week.

"I'm still coping. I'm still learning," Sultan al-Neyadi said, but added that he hopes to improve in the coming days.

The U.N. Middle East peace envoy urged Israel and the Palestinians Wednesday to calm surging violence in the occupied West Bank, a day after the latest Israeli raid killed six people.

A drone strike killed four people in government-held eastern Syria on Wednesday in an area controlled by Iran-backed factions, a war monitor said.

"Four people were killed and eight wounded in a drone strike near a weapons factory belonging to Iran-backed groups and near a truck loaded with weapons," Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.

The Israeli army raided a home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, triggering a battle that killed at least six Palestinians and wounded more than two dozen others, Palestinian health officials said.

The military said that one of those killed in the Jenin refugee camp was the suspected assailant behind a fatal shooting of two Israeli brothers in the northern West Bank town of Hawara last week. An Israeli police spokesperson said three Israeli forces were in fair-to-serious condition after being shot and wounded in Tuesday's firefight in Jenin.

Israel's far-right national security minister joined Jewish revelers in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, dancing with residents from the hard-line settler community as they celebrated the holiday of Purim.

Itamar Ben-Gvir — dressed in a costume combining elements of various uniforms of forces under his command — danced, sang, and took selfies with party-goers and soldiers at an event in an Israeli settlement in Hebron. Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist politician in Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, lives in an adjacent settlement.

Qatar's top diplomat was sworn in as the country's prime minister on Tuesday, replacing another member of the royal family who had held the post since 2020, state news reported.

The Qatar News Agency says Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was sworn in as the new head of government, without providing further details.

The head of the United Nations cultural agency has promised to continue helping to repair the damage done to Iraq's historic sites by decades of war.

In a visit to Baghdad ahead of the 20-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay met with officials including Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. She also visited historic neighborhoods in Baghdad and the country's national museum, which was looted following the U.S. invasion.

The U.S. State Department has banned entry into the U.S. of a Syrian intelligence member who appeared in a video leaked last year showing him fatally shooting people during the country's 12-year conflict.

The ban against Amjad Yousef, a member of Syria's notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227, includes his wife and immediate members of his family, the State Department said in a statement.

Shraga Tichover is hanging up his fatigues. After more than three decades as a reservist in the Israeli military, the paratrooper says he will no longer put his life on the line for a country slipping toward autocracy.

Tichover is part of a wave of unprecedented opposition from within the ranks of the Israeli military to a contentious government plan to overhaul the judiciary. Like Tichover, some reservists are refusing to show up for duty and former commanders are defending their actions as a natural response to the impending change.