Lebanese security forces, after elections last week, yesterday began removing concrete barriers and easing security measures around the country’s parliament building that were put in place at the outbreak of massive anti-government protests in 2019.

At least six people died and dozens were injured or missing under rubble after an unfinished high-rise building collapsed in southwestern Iran, officials said.

Saudi citizens have been banned from traveling to 16 countries due to Covid-19 cases in those countries, the Saudi Gazette said in a report Sunday, quoting Saudi Arabia's General Directorate of Passports (Jawazat).

Iraq closed public buildings and temporarily shut airports Monday as another sandstorm -- the ninth since mid-April -- hit the country, authorities said.

Gunmen shot dead a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday in the east of the capital Tehran, state news agency IRNA reported.

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenage fighter when clashes broke out during a raid yesterday in the flashpoint Jenin area of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian sources and the army said.

Reformist candidates secured at least 13 seats in Lebanon's new parliament, making unprecedented gains, according to results announced by the interior ministry Tuesday.

Another sandstorm that descended yesterday on climate-stressed Iraq sent at least 4,000 people to hospital with breathing problems and led to the closure of airports, schools and public offices across the country.

The Catholic archbishop in Jerusalem on Monday strongly criticised Israel's "police invasion" last week of a Christian hospital ahead of the funeral of slain Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.

Lebanon held its first election yesterday since a painful economic crisis dragged it to the brink of becoming a failed state, a major test for new opposition groups bent on ousting the ruling elite.

World leaders descended on the United Arab Emirates yesterday to offer condolences to new leader Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the death of his half-brother President Khalifa bin Zayed.

A crowd estimated at more than 2,000, lower than expected, took part yesterday in the first demonstration of a new alliance to oppose a power grab by President Kais Saied.