Israeli forces raided a home above a bakery in a militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing a Palestinian militant in a gunbattle in Jenin, a city that has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Violence has gripped the region since last spring when Israel launched near-nightly raids in response to a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks. It's become the fiercest fighting in the West Bank in some two decades, and along with increased violence by radical Jewish settlers and settlement expansion by Israel's far-right government, has fueled tensions in the region.

The United States has imposed sanctions on a Lebanese environmental organization accused of being an arm of the militant group Hezbollah.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Green Without Borders and its leader, Zouher Nahli, for allegedly providing support and cover to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon along the "Blue Line" between Lebanon and Israel "while operating under the guise of environmental activism."

The rate of inflation in the U.K. fell sharply in July to a 17-month low largely on the back of lower energy prices, official figures showed Wednesday, a welcome development for hard-pressed households struggling during the cost of living crisis.

The Office for National Statistics said the annual rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, was 6.8% in July, its lowest level since February 2022, the month Russia invaded Ukraine and sent energy prices surging.

North Korea asserted Wednesday that a U.S. soldier who bolted across the heavily armed Korean border last month did so after becoming disillusioned with the inequality of American society and racial discrimination in its Army.

It was North Korea's first official confirmation of detention of Pvt. Travis King, who had served in South Korea and sprinted into the North while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18. He became the first American confirmed to be detained in the North in nearly five years.

The death toll from a powerful explosion near the Dominican Republic's capital rose to 11 on Tuesday, with dozens injured. Firefighters were searching through smoldering rubble as people gathered outside hospitals, looking for missing loved ones.

President Luis Abinader visited San Cristobal, located just west of Santo Domingo, to meet with those affected. Officials said an additional 10 people were missing and that authorities were still trying to extinguish the fire amid collapsed buildings and charred vehicles.

Chinese and Indian military commanders pledged to "maintain the peace and tranquility" along their disputed border, China's Defense Ministry said, in an apparent effort by the sides to stabilize the situation after a rise in tensions.

China's Defense Ministry issued a joint statement on social media late Tuesday saying the 19th round of commander-level talks between the sides held on Sunday and Monday had produced a "positive, constructive and in-depth discussion" centered on resolving issues related to the Line of Actual Control in the border's western sector.

Vacationers were mostly able to return to their campsites Tuesday after a wildfire ripped through 500 hectares (1,235 acres) of land near the seaside resort of Argeles-sur-Mer in southern France, close to the border with Spain, authorities said.

Up to 3,000 vacationers on four campsites had been evacuated on Monday evening as a precaution. Authorities said Tuesday that the fire was contained overnight but remains under close surveillance.

The "Barbie" movie was pulled from theaters in Algeria this week almost one month after its release in the North African country.

Online news outlet 24H Algerie said Algeria's Ministry of Culture and Arts notified cinemas in Algiers, Oran and Constantine to "immediately" pull the movie.

Nigeriens are preparing for a possible invasion by countries in the region, three weeks after mutinous soldiers ousted the nation's democratically elected president.

Residents in the capital, Niamey, are calling for the mass recruitment of volunteers to assist the army in the face of a growing threat by the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, which says it will use military force if the junta doesn't reinstate deposed President Mohamed Bazoum. ECOWAS has activated a "standby force" to restore order in Niger after the junta ignored a deadline to release and reinstate Bazoum.

Nestled in sand dunes an hour's drive from the skyscrapers of Dubai, a desert village abandoned in the 1990s stands as an eerie relic of the rapid urbanization of the United Arab Emirates.

Built in the 1970s to house semi-nomadic Bedouin, the village of al-Ghuraifa was abandoned two decades later as oil wealth transformed the country into a global hub of commerce and tourism, home to the futuristic cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.