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Syria Interim President Joins Arab Summit on Gaza

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of his first Arab summit. - AFP
Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of his first Arab summit. - AFP
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Syria Interim President Joins Arab Summit on Gaza

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of his first Arab summit. - AFP
Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of his first Arab summit. - AFP

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa was in Cairo Tuesday for an Arab League summit on Gaza, his first such meeting since ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad nearly three months ago.

Sharaa arrived "to attend the extraordinary Arab summit in Cairo on developments on the Palestinian issue", state news agency SANA reported.

The Syrian presidency published images of Sharaa meeting with senior officials including United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and European Union chief Antonio Costa on the sidelines of the summit.

Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, led a lightning rebel offensive that ousted Assad on December 8, ending more than half a century of the family's rule, AFP reported.

Sharaa was appointed interim president for an unspecified transitional period the following month.

Under Assad, Syria was suspended from the Arab League over his brutal 2011 crackdown on pro-democracy protests which spiralled into a devastating civil war.

Damascus was allowed to return to the bloc in 2023 after years of regional isolation.

A UN Security Council committee approved a travel ban exemption for Sharaa, enabling him to visit Egypt for Tuesday's summit despite his inclusion on a sanctions list.

The meeting was called in response to a widely criticized proposal by President Donald Trump for the United States to take over war-battered Gaza and redevelop it into the "Riviera of the Middle East", forcing its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.

Sharaa has called Trump's proposal "a very huge crime that cannot happen".

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Arab World

Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Israel’s Security Cabinet Approves 19 New Settlements in West Bank

A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)
A helicopter flies over the Israeli settlement of Shilo in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's security cabinet approved the establishment of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, bringing the total number approved over the past three years to 69, an official statement said Sunday.

"The proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz to declare and formalize 19 new settlements in Judea and Samaria has been approved by the cabinet," a statement from Smotrich's office said, without specifying when the decision was taken.

"On the ground, we are blocking the establishment of a Palestinian terror state. We will continue to develop, build, and settle the land of our ancestral heritage, with faith in the justice of our path," Smotrich said in the statement.

Arab World

Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Iraq Top Judge Says Armed Factions to Cooperate on Weapons

Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)
Cars drive through central Baghdad as a thick fog blankets the Iraqi capital on December 11, 2025. (AFP)

The head of Iraq's highest judicial body said Saturday that the leaders of armed factions have agreed to cooperate on the sensitive issue of the state's monopoly on weapons.

However, the powerful Kataib Hezbollah group said that it would only discuss giving up its arms when foreign troops leave the country.

"The resistance is a right, and its weapons will remain in the hands of its fighters," the group said in a statement.

The leaders of three other pro-Iran factions designated by Washington as terrorist groups said that it is time to restrict weapons to state control, although they too have stopped short of committing to disarm -- a long-standing US demand.

Faiq Zidan, the head of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, in a statement thanked "faction leaders for heeding his advice to coordinate together to enforcing the rule of law, restrict weapons to state control, and transition to political action after the national need for military action has ceased".

After Iraq's general elections in November, the United States demanded that the new government exclude six groups it designates as terrorists and instead move to dismantle them, Iraqi officials and diplomats told AFP.

But some of the groups have increased their presence in the new parliament and are members of the Coordination Framework, a ruling alliance of Shiite parties with varying ties to Iran that holds the majority.

The blacklisted groups are part of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces, a former paramilitary alliance that has integrated into the armed forces. But they have also developed a reputation for sometimes acting on their own.

They are also part of the Tehran-backed so-called "Axis of Resistance" and have called for the withdrawal of US troops -- deployed in Iraq as part of an anti-ISIS coalition -- and launched attacks against them.

These groups include the powerful Asaib Ahl al-Haq faction, which won 27 seats in the elections.

Earlier this week, the group's leader, Qais al-Khazali, a key figure in the Coordination Framework, said "we believe" in "the slogan to restrict weapons to the state", and "we are now part of the state".

Two other groups, Harakat Ansar Allah al-Awfiya and Kataeb Imam Ali, said on Friday that it is time to "limit weapons to the state".

Arab World

Israeli Military Says Killed Two Palestinians in West Bank

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Military Says Killed Two Palestinians in West Bank

A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag flutters in front of Israeli soldiers standing near their military vehicle parked at the entrance of the Nur Shams Palestinian refugee camp, in the Israeli-occupied northern West Bank on December 15, 2025. (AFP)

Israel's military said it killed two Palestinians in the north of the occupied West Bank Saturday, accusing one of throwing "a block" and the other an explosive at its soldiers.

In a statement the military said that during an operation "in the area of Qabatiya, a terrorist hurled a block toward the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist".

"Simultaneously, during an additional operation in the Silat al-Harithiya area, a terrorist hurled an explosive toward the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist."

Both locations are near the city of Jenin.

The Israeli military reported no injuries among its troops.

The Palestinian health ministry said that a 16-year-old boy died "from wounds caused by a bullet of the Israeli occupation forces", according to the official Wafa news agency.

It also reported that a 22-year-old man was killed by "a bullet to the chest during an occupation forces raid" on Silat al-Harithiya.

Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

It has not subsided despite the truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them gunmen, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.