Spotlight
The betting scandal in Turkish football deepened on Friday as 29 people, including 14 footballers, were arrested, the Istanbul public prosecutor's office announced.
Their arrests follow the incarceration of six referees and the president of top tier club Eyupspor at the beginning of November.
Full Story
Israeli security forces announced on Thursday the arrest of five Israeli settlers over their alleged involvement in an attack on a Palestinian home that injured a baby girl in the occupied West Bank.
Full Story
Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said that "all efforts" were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
Full Story
A major Gaza hospital has suspended several services because of a critical fuel shortage in the devastated Palestinian territory, which continues to face a severe humanitarian crisis, it said.
Devastated by more than two years of war, the Al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza district of Nuseirat cares for around 60 in-patients and receives nearly 1,000 people seeking medical treatment each day.
Full Story
A Palestinian from the Israeli-occupied West Bank killed a woman and a man in a stabbing and car-ramming attack before police shot and wounded him Friday, police and rescuers said.
"Preliminary investigation indicates this was a rolling terror attack that began in the city of Beit Shean, where a pedestrian was run over," the police said in a statement.
Full Story
A man wounded in an Israeli strike last week south of Beirut has died of his injuries, The National News Agency said.
It identified him as a member of Lebanon's General Security agency and said "he happened to be passing at the time of the strike as he returned from service" in the capital, earlier this month.
Full Story
Lebanon said Israeli strikes near the Syrian border and in the country's south killed three people on Thursday, as Israel said it targeted a member of Iran's elite Quds Force and a Hezbollah operative.
Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon and has maintained troops in five areas it deems strategic.
Full Story
President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. launched a "powerful and deadly" strike against Islamic State forces in Nigeria, after spending weeks accusing the West African country's government of failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.
In a Christmas evening post on his social media site, Trump did not provide details or mention the extent of the damage caused by the strikes in Sokoto state.
Full Story
Saudi Arabia, the main backer of Yemen's internationally-recognized government, conducted air strikes on separatist positions in Hadramawt on Friday, according to local media and the UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council.
"The Saudi Air Force bombed positions of the Hadrami Elite Forces in Wadi Nahb in Hadramawt," the separatist-linked Aden Independent Channel said in a social media post. Saudi officials would not immediately confirm the operation.
Full Story
Australian police are investigating a "suspicious fire" after a car carrying a sign celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah was set ablaze Thursday in Melbourne.
Full Story



