A family has accused Kurdish forces in northeast Syria of torturing to death a detained relative, sparking a social media uproar despite the denial of Kurdish authorities.

Israel's top diplomat Yair Lapid said Wednesday that more cooperation deals with the UAE were on the horizon, during a landmark visit to the Gulf nation.

Syrian mother Umm Saeed was so desperate to find her two jailed sons she even sold the family furniture to pay "fixers", but a decade of deceit has left her no closer to the truth.

Israel's top diplomat Yair Lapid opened Israel's first embassy in the Gulf during a trip to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, nine months after they signed a normalization deal.

Thousands of members of Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary alliance gathered in Baghdad on Tuesday to mourn comrades killed in American air strikes along the Syrian border.

Jewish settlers agreed Monday to leave a new outpost in the occupied West Bank that has stirred weeks of Palestinian protests following a deal with Israel's government, officials said. 

In a camp in northwest Syria, Mohamad al-Abdullah relies on U.N. aid to treat a spinal injury that could have paralyzed him had it not been for cross-border aid. 

Pro-Iranian militias fired several shells at a U.S. base in eastern Syria's Al-Omar oil field on Monday night, causing damage but no casualties, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that strikes on pro-Iran fighters in Iraq and Syria should send a "strong" message of deterrence not to keep attacking US forces.

Israel's foreign minister has voiced concern over U.S. diplomacy with Iran but promised a less confrontational approach, in the new government's first high-level talks with the Jewish state's closest ally.