Entering a Gaza City restaurant, customers are welcomed by a multi-tasking disinfection machine designed by a Palestinian businesswoman to curb the spread of the coronavirus in the crisis-hit enclave.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday Turkey had the legitimate right to act again if militants are not cleared from its border with Syria, where it has carried out several incursions in the last four years.

The Beirut Bar Association yesterday handed the public prosecutor almost 700 criminal complaints from victims of the city’s deadly August 4 port blast, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

Syrian rebels pounded regime forces with rocket and artillery fire in northwest Syria Tuesday, a day after Russian aircraft killed dozens among their ranks, a monitor said.

Iran extended Covid-19 curbs in Tehran and across the country yesterday as health authorities said they were recording a death from the virus every four minutes.

Air strikes by Damascus regime ally Russia killed 78 rebels in northwestern Syria yesterday, a monitor said, in the bloodiest surge in violence since a truce almost eight months ago.

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Health announced Monday that it reported 682 new cases of coronavirus (Covid-19) in the past 24 hours, bringing the total of confirmed cases in the country to 122,317.

An 18-year-old Palestinian died yesterday after a confrontation with Israeli troops, with the army saying it happened while trying to flee and Palestinian officials saying he had been beaten.

Iraqi security forces and protesters clashed in Baghdad yesterday during demonstrations to mark the first anniversary of mass anti-government protests demanding the ouster of the ruling class.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called yesterday for strict punishments for violators of Covid-19 restrictions as the Middle East’s hardest-hit nation battled a third wave.

Iran has delivered several gasoline and crude oil shipments to Syria, easing a near two-month gasoline shortage aggravated by tougher U.S. sanctions, shippers, port officials and traders said.

The United States has imposed sanctions on two officials from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the US Treasury Department said, including one who served as a senior military commander in the south of the country.