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Blaze at Cairo Telecom Building Kills 4 and Disrupts Internet, Phone

A boy wearing a mask looks on, as firefighters work to extinguish a fire that erupted in a telecommunications building in the Ramses district of downtown Cairo, Egypt July 7, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A boy wearing a mask looks on, as firefighters work to extinguish a fire that erupted in a telecommunications building in the Ramses district of downtown Cairo, Egypt July 7, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Blaze at Cairo Telecom Building Kills 4 and Disrupts Internet, Phone

A boy wearing a mask looks on, as firefighters work to extinguish a fire that erupted in a telecommunications building in the Ramses district of downtown Cairo, Egypt July 7, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A boy wearing a mask looks on, as firefighters work to extinguish a fire that erupted in a telecommunications building in the Ramses district of downtown Cairo, Egypt July 7, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Four workers were killed and at least 22 others were injured in a fire that broke out on Monday at a key data center in Cairo, Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the spokesperson at Egypt's Health Ministry, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The blaze at a Telecom Egypt facility, which state TV said was contained on Monday, caused disruptions to communications across the capital.

Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Amr Talaat, said in a statement on Tuesday that services will be gradually restored within 24 hours.

In a statement on Tuesday, Telecom Egypt said it mourned the employees that lost their lives and offered support for their families.

The fire halted phone calls, and disrupted internet access, with internet monitoring group Netblocks saying network data showed national connectivity at 62% of ordinary levels.

The health ministry posted alternative numbers for ambulance services across different governorates in case people were unable to reach its main hotline.

Besides phone calls, some digital banking services were also impacted including credit cards, ATM machines and online transactions, a bank source and residents said on Monday. Banks had already been closed for the day.

The injuries were mostly because of smoke inhalation, health ministry spokesperson Ghaffar said on Monday.

The state news agency MENA said on Monday the fire had been prevented from spreading to the entire building and neighboring rooftops.

An initial examination indicated that the fire was likely to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, MENA cited a security source as saying.

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Arab World

UN Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen Resigns

FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
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UN Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen Resigns

FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)

The United Nations special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, unexpectedly resigned on Thursday after almost seven years as the organization's representative to the war-torn country.

"I wish to let the council know that I have informed the secretary-general of my intention to step down after more than six-and-a-half years serving as United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, and he has graciously accepted my request," Pedersen told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Syria.

"It has been my intention for quite some time to move on for personal reasons after a long period of service," Pedersen told the 15-member council. "My experience in Syria has affirmed an enduring truth - that sometimes it's darkest before the dawn. For so long, progress seemed absolutely impossible, until suddenly it came."

Syrian president Bashar Assad was ousted in December.

"Few have endured suffering as profound as the Syrians, and few have demonstrated such resilience and determination," Pedersen said.

"Today, Syria and the Syrian people have a new dawn, and we must ensure that this becomes a bright day. They deserve this so much," he added.

“Being a special envoy for any conflict, let alone one that we Syrians know, is no easy job," Syria's UN Ambassador Ibrahim Olabi told the Security Council, adding that Pedersen "departs on a note of hope, on a success story."

He said Syria looks forward to "engaging with the Secretary-General and all of you in working with his successor in a way that preserves Syrian sovereignty and fulfills the aspiration of the Syrian people."

Arab World

Gunman Kills 2 at Israeli-run Crossing between West Bank, Jordan

Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
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Gunman Kills 2 at Israeli-run Crossing between West Bank, Jordan

Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon

A gunman killed two people at an Israeli-run border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan on Thursday, officials said.

The Israeli military referred to it as a militant attack and said that the shooter arrived on a truck transporting humanitarian aid. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said that two men, around 60 and 20 years old, were killed. The military said the attacker had been “neutralized," without elaborating, The AP news reported

Three Israelis were killed in a September 2024 attack at the crossing, when a retired Jordanian soldier opened fire. That attack appeared to be linked to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The Allenby Bridge Crossing over the Jordan River, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is mainly used by Palestinians and tourists. It was closed after the attack.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state. Violence has surged across the occupied West Bank since the Hamas-led attack from Gaza into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the latest war.

Israel is waging a major ground offensive in Gaza City that has forced nearly 250,000 Palestinians to flee, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of thousands remain in the city, large parts of which have already been destroyed in previous Israeli raids.

Arab World

Israel Says it Attacked Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon

A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
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Israel Says it Attacked Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon

A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

Israel said on Thursday it had launched fresh airstrikes against Hezbollah military targets in south Lebanon to stop the group rebuilding in the area.

Israel's military confirmed in a statement that unspecified attacks were underway after earlier saying it would hit Hezbollah military infrastructure "in response to the group’s unlawful attempts to rebuild its activities in the area."

It warned residents of three villages to evacuate.

"We direct an urgent warning to the residents of the buildings marked in red... to evacuate those buildings," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee wrote on X. He provided maps of the three Lebanese villages of Mays al-Jabal, Kfar Tebnit and Dibbine.

Lebanon's state news agency NNA confirmed strikes in the area. There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah, or word on any damage or casualties.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the evacuation warning contradicted international peace efforts.

Lebanon's government was committed to halting hostilities and engaged in meetings to ensure implementation of a UN resolution that ended a round of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Salam said in a post on X.

The US brokered a truce in November between Lebanon and Israel after more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, but Israel has continued sporadically to attack Hezbollah across the border.

Lebanon is under pressure to disarm the group.

Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.