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75 years after the Nakba, Palestinians still long for return

From her modest home in the blockaded Gaza Strip, Amina al-Dabai remembers the very different world in which she grew up more than seven decades ago.

Born in 1934, Dabai was still only a child when Israel was created on May 14, 1948.

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US House speaker in Knesset amid fraught US-Israel ties

The U.S. House speaker has addressed Israel's parliament, a rare honor awarded to the highest-ranking Republican in U.S. politics at a time of fraught relations between Israel's government and Democratic President Joe Biden.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu portrayed the speech as a nod to bipartisan U.S. support for Israel as it marks 75 years since its creation. Critics say the platform given to McCarthy — he's only the second House speaker to address the Knesset, after Newt Gingrich in 1998 — is a pointed jab at Biden.

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Return of Syrian refugees 'top priority' in Arab summit

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Amman to discuss Syria's long-running conflict have agreed the return of Syrian refugees was a "top priority", according to a communique released after the talks.

The talks in Jordan's capital brought together foreign ministers from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt, in the latest regional engagement with the long isolated government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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Jordan FM: Regional talks with Syria step toward solution

Jordan's top diplomat has said that regional talks with Syria are a step in the right direction to end a decade of the war-torn country's political isolation and bring Damascus back into the Arab fold.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi's remarks came as Jordan hosted a meeting of envoys from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Before the meeting kicked off, Safadi met one-on-one with his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad.

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Israeli strikes hit Aleppo airport, killing 1 soldier

Israeli airstrikes targeted the international airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early Tuesday, killing one Syrian soldier and putting the airport out of commission, state media said.

Syria's state news agency SANA, citing a military official, said two civilians and five other Syrian soldiers were wounded, and that Israel had launched airstrikes on other unnamed targets around Aleppo.

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Palestinian prisoner dies in Israel after long hunger strike

A high-profile Palestinian prisoner died in Israeli custody on Tuesday after a nearly three-month hunger strike, Israel's prison service announced, at a time of already soaring tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.

Khader Adnan, a leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, is the first Palestinian prisoner to die since Palestinian inmates began staging protracted hunger strikes about a decade ago. His death raises the potential for renewed violence between Israel and Palestinian militant groups as violence surges in the West Bank.

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Erdogan says Turkish forces killed IS chief in Syria

Turkish forces have killed the leader of the Islamic State group during an operation in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Sunday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan told TRT Turk television in an interview that the IS leader, code-named Abu Hussein al-Qurayshi, was killed in a strike conducted on Saturday.

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Tunisia's Saied hails free thinking but book seized

Tunisian President Kais Saied has preached freedom of thought at a book fair, shortly before authorities confiscated a book comparing him to Frankenstein, its author and publisher said.

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Israel bombs Syria 'Hezbollah depot' from Lebanon's airspace

Three civilians were wounded Saturday in Israeli air strikes near the Syrian city of Homs, Syrian state media reported, with a war monitor saying a Hezbollah munitions depot was hit.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

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Iranian president to visit Syria on Wednesday

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit Damascus "in the near future," on the first such trip to Syria since the country's civil war began, Iran's foreign minister said.

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