Fighting for the key Yemeni region of Marib has intensified, with 53 pro-government and Huthi rebel fighters dead in the past 24 hours, loyalist military officials said Saturday.

Israel on Thursday said it had formally decided not to cooperate with an International Criminal Court war crimes investigation into the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

An attack this week on an Iranian cargo ship that is said to serve as a floating base for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces off the coast of Yemen has escalated a yearslong shadow war in Mideast waters. The development comes just as world powers are negotiating over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal.

The assault on the MV Saviz on Tuesday appears to have caused the most-extensive damage yet in this shadow war, seemingly between Iran and Israel - and one that could further escalate regional tensions. Attacks and counterattacks between the two nations could spin out of control.

The cash-strapped U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA Thursday praised President Joe Biden for resuming U.S. financial support, saying it came at a "critical moment" amid the Covid pandemic.

Last summer, two U.S. officials ventured into hostile territory for a secret high-stakes meeting with American adversaries.

The Syrian government officials they were scheduled to meet in Damascus seemed ready to discuss the fate of U.S. hostages believed held in their country, including Austin Tice, a journalist captured eight years earlier. The release of the Americans would be a boon to President Donald Trump months ahead of the election. And a breakthrough seemed possible.

U.S. President Joe Biden has restored aid to the Palestinians to a tune of $235 million, drawing a rebuke by ally Israel, as he promised to press for a two-state solution.

Israel carried out a missile attack near the Syrian capital of Damascus and its southern suburbs early Thursday that wounded four soldiers, Syria's state media said.

State news agency, SANA, quoted an unidentified military official as saying that Syrian air defenses were able to shoot down most of the missiles before they hit their targets. SANA said some of the missiles were fired by Israeli warplanes flying over neighboring Lebanon.

In a corner of a shabby central Khartoum neighborhood, Hebrew-lettered gravestones jut up from a rubble-strewn plot, remnants of the small but vibrant Jewish community that once lived in Sudan.

Jordan's Prince Hamzah, accused of plotting against the kingdom's "security and stability", disappeared from the local press Wednesday following a prosecutor's order banning coverage of the kingdom's worst crisis in decades.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi faces daily pressure from pro-Iranian groups at home, but that has not stopped him from reaching out to Tehran's enemies.