An ex-aide to Benjamin Netanyahu has taken the stand in the former Israeli prime minister's corruption trial, describing his boss as a "control freak" who was obsessed with the way he and his family were portrayed in the media.

Nir Hefetz, a former spokesman for Netanyahu, is a key prosecution witness expected to deliver critical testimony in the trial, which revolves around accusations that Netanyahu committed fraud, breach of trust and accepted bribes. The former premier, now opposition leader, denies any wrongdoing.

Two Palestinian hunger strikers, including one who went without food for 131 days, have suspended their strikes against Israel's controversial policy of detaining them without charge after reaching a deal that will allow them to go free in the coming months, a prisoner rights group said.

Israel's internal security agency said that it had arrested more than 50 members of a Hamas cell in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem that were involved in planning attacks on Israelis.

The tiny Arab nation of Qatar has for years employed a former CIA officer to help spy on soccer officials as part of a no-expense-spared effort to win and hold on to the 2022 World Cup tournament, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

It's part of a trend of former U.S. intelligence officers going to work for foreign governments with questionable human rights records that is worrying officials in Washington and prompting calls from some members of Congress for greater scrutiny of an opaque and lucrative market.

After years in Israel's political wilderness, small dovish parties that support Palestinian statehood and oppose Jewish settlements are back in government. But they are finding their influence is limited, with pro-settler coalition partners showing little appetite for compromise and the country's decades-long occupation churning on.

The parties are having to rein themselves in as hopes for a Palestinian state slip further away under their watch, with settlement construction booming and peace talks a distant memory. Nonetheless, the left-leaning lawmakers say their presence in the coalition is important and that the alternative is worse.

The foreign minister of Yemen's government in exile warned Sunday that a rebel takeover of the crucial, energy-rich city of Marib would be a disaster on the scale of the collapse of its ancient dam that decimated an entire kingdom.

Ahmad Awad Bin Mubarak's comments mark some of the most dire made regarding the offensive by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have held Yemen's capital since September 2014. Though the intervention of Saudi-led coalition halted their march south in 2015, the war has slogged on for years and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Posters of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi beam out over a site in the war-battered Gaza Strip where laborers and bulldozers are hard at work rebuilding.

A militant of the Palestinian Hamas movement opened fire Sunday in Jerusalem's Old City, killing one person and wounding three before he was shot dead, Israeli officials, police and medics said.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett ordered security to be boosted and called for people to be on "heightened alert" over the risk of further attacks.

America's top defense official vowed Saturday to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to counter its "dangerous use" of suicide drones in the wider Mideast, a pledge coming as negotiations remain stalled over Tehran's tattered atomic deal with world powers.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's comments in Bahrain at the annual Manama Dialogue appeared aimed at reassuring America's Gulf Arab allies as the Biden administration tries to revive the nuclear deal, which limited Iran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Vandals slashed the tires on nearly a dozen Palestinian-owned vehicles overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where Jewish settlers have been waging a decades-long legal battle to evict Palestinians, residents said Friday.

CCTV footage shows three hooded men entering a fenced-off area of Sheikh Jarrah before stabbing the tires of parked cars. It was unclear who was responsible, but recent weeks have seen an escalation in settler violence toward Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Showing support for Hamas in Britain could be punished with 14 years in prison if the government succeeds in banning the group as a "terrorist organization," the UK's Home Office said Friday.