Israel's parliament elected a close ally of prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu as its new speaker Tuesday to oversee the passage of legislation that will help his formation of a government.

Yariv Levin, a senior member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, was chosen as speaker to replace Mickey Levy from outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party. 

France and Morocco have a relatively relaxed post-colonial relationship but ties are still not without tensions that risk being exposed when their national football sides clash in a World Cup semi final in Qatar.

The relationship France has with Morocco is not nearly as traumatic as with neighboring Algeria, which fought Paris in a bloody seven-year War of Independence that scars both nations to this day.

It's a rare moment in the Middle East when the public's voice roars louder than those of the governments. But Morocco's surprise string of wins at the World Cup in Qatar have stirred a joy and pride among Arab fans that have, at least for a moment, eclipsed the region's many political divisions.

Perhaps most striking is the love fest between Palestinians and the Moroccan team, despite the Moroccan government's normalization of ties with Israel as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Human Rights Watch on Monday accused the European Union's border and coast guard agency of being complicit in migrant abuses by Libya by allowing the North African country's coast guard to intercept migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea for southern Europe.

Following a data-based investigation report released by the New York-based watchdog last Thursday, it concluded that the agency, known as Frontex, uses its aerial surveillance technology to help Libyan forces locate migrant boats — rather than other rescue organizations or merchant ships also patrolling the Mediterranean.

A Palestinian hospital said Israeli forces killed a teenage girl during an army operation in the occupied West Bank early on Monday.

In the northern city of Jenin, Khalil Suleiman Government Hospital said Jana Zakaran, 16, was hit with a gunshot in the head and pronounced dead.

Qatar is still bustling with life just days before the end of the first World Cup in the Middle East.

At Katara beach in Doha, children play soccer on the golden sand during the day, while others go for a swim at night in waters lit by the capital's glimmering skyline.

A Libyan intelligence official accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 in an international act of terrorism has been taken into U.S. custody and will face federal charges in Washington, the Justice Department said Sunday.

The arrest of Abu Agila Mohammad Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi is a milestone in the decades-old investigation into the attack that killed 259 people in the air and 11 on the ground. American authorities in December 2020 announced charges against Mas'ud, who was in Libyan custody at the time. Though he is the third Libyan intelligence official charged in the U.S. in connection with the attack, he would be the first to appear in an American courtroom for prosecution.

Belgium on Friday detained four people including a former MEP as part of a probe into suspected corruption by "a Gulf country" at the EU parliament, the prosecutor's office said.

Israel's presidency on Friday granted prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu a 10-day extension to clinch a coalition deal, as post-election negotiations with his right-wing allies grind on.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Arab leaders at summits in Riyadh on Friday after striking a series of agreements with Saudi Arabia, strengthening ties as the top oil exporter quarrels with Washington.