Israeli President Reuven Rivlin began a series of meetings Monday with representatives of political parties voted into parliament in last week's elections ahead of choosing who will form the next government.

Rivlin would appear to have little choice but to pick incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his party won the most seats in the April 9 vote leaving it best placed to form a coalition government.

The United States congratulated the new Palestinian government Sunday, a day after incoming prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced his new cabinet alongside president Mahmud Abbas -- leaving out the Islamist movement Hamas.

Saudi Arabia is looking to find a way out of its devastating war in Yemen and the United States, the kingdom's stalwart ally, can play a critical role, the International Crisis Group said Sunday.

The group, which researches ways to end conflicts, said the United States should appoint a special envoy and suspend most arms shipments to the Saudis with a promise to resume them once the kingdom ends its four-year offensive against Huthi rebels who control much of their southern neighbor.

With Sudan in turmoil following the ouster of their ally Omar al-Bashir, Gulf powerhouses Saudi Arabia and the UAE are following events closely as they seek to protect their interests, analysts say.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met Sunday with Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are fighting for control of the capital Tripoli, the presidency said.

Syrian Kurds on Saturday repatriated 25 women and children from Iraq's Yazidi minority after freeing them during the final push against the Islamic State group, a local official said.

The US-backed fighters say they rescued some 300 Yazidi women and children during the fight to take the jihadists' last scrap of territory in eastern Syria.

The United Nations has expressed its "grave concern" over the detention in Tunisia of a UN expert tasked with investigating violations of a Libya arms embargo.

"The arrest and detention by the Tunisian authorities of Moncef Kartas... while he was performing his official duties is a matter of very grave concern," the spokesman for the UN secretary-general said in a statement Friday. 

After years of anxiously waiting in cramped prison cells, appointments with the noose can come fast to the many on Egypt's death row. 

The United Nations on Friday urgently appealed for the release and evacuation of more than 1,500 detained refugees and migrants caught in the crossfire of escalating fighting sparked by a self-styled Libyan army commander's military campaign to take the capital.

The U.N. refugee agency said the refugees and migrants are believed to be trapped in detention centers where hostilities are ranging.

It's Arab Spring, season II, and he's one of the few holdovers. The last man standing among a crop of Arab autocrats, after a new wave of protests forced the removal of the Algerian and Sudanese leaders from the posts they held for decades.

Syria's President Bashar Assad has survived an uprising, a years-long ruinous war and an Islamic "caliphate" established over parts of his broken country. As the Syrian conflict enters its ninth year, the 53-year-old leader appears more secure and confident than at any time since the revolt against his rule began in 2011.