A separatist group has seized control of an oil-rich region in southern Yemen, shattering a relative calm in the country's stalemated civil war — a significant move in a country located along a key international trade route that also threatens to bring new risks to the Persian Gulf region.

The secessionist Southern Transitional Council, STC, a group backed by the United Arab Emirates, this month seized most of the the provinces of Hadramout and Mahra, including oil facilities.

Two four-story buildings collapsed overnight in the Moroccan city of Fez, killing 19 people in the second fatal collapse there this year, authorities said on Wednesday.

Morocco's state news agency reported the two residential buildings housed eight families. Sixteen people were injured in the collapse and sent for treatment at a nearby hospital. Authorities said the neighborhood had been evacuated and search and rescue efforts were ongoing.

Aid deliveries into Gaza are falling far short of the amount called for under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, according to an Associated Press analysis of the Israeli military's figures.

Under the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Israel agreed to allow 600 trucks of aid into Gaza each day. But an average of only 459 trucks a day have entered Gaza between Oct. 12, when flow of the aid restarted, and Dec. 7, according to an AP analysis of figures by COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid entry.

Bolivia's new right-wing government said Tuesday that it restored diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest sign of the dramatic geopolitical realignment underway in the South American country that was once among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo met his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar in Washington and signed a declaration agreeing to revive bilateral ties, which Bolivia's previous left-wing government severed two years ago over Israel's devastating campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

The woman, a member of Syria 's Alawite religious minority, was walking home on a sunny July day in her town on the Mediterranean coast when three gunmen stopped her and pulled her into their van. It was the start of a week of torment.

Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.

"Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing", an Israeli official said in a statement Tuesday, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.

A Hamas leader on Tuesday threatened to not move forward into the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement until more pressure is placed on Israel to open up a key border crossing, cease deadly strikes and allow more aid into the Palestinian territory.

The accusation came as Israel's government says it's ready to move into the next, more complicated phase of the ceasefire deal – even as it has called on the militant group to return the remains of the last Israeli hostage held in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Donald Trump in the United States on December 29, a spokeswoman for the premier's office told AFP on Tuesday.

It will be Netanyahu's fifth visit to meet Trump in the U.S. since the start of the year and comes after the prime minister said he expected the second phase of the US-sponsored ceasefire plan for Gaza to begin soon.

Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for nearly half of all journalists killed this year worldwide, with 29 Palestinian reporters slain by its forces in Gaza.

In its annual report, the Paris-based media freedom group said the total number of journalists killed reached 67 globally this year, up from 66 killed in 2024.

The Associated Press' top photos from the Middle East and the surrounding region in 2025 capture conflict, resilience, and moments of quiet wonder. Taken across Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, the 35 images reveal a turbulent year.

Photographers documented the human toll of war and violence: civilians affected by the Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank, devastation and death in Gaza, and hostages returning from Gaza. In Lebanon, a child injured by an exploding pager in an Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah members shows the intimate cost of conflict. In Syria, the aftermath of a bomb attack on a church and a fallen statue of late Syrian President Hafez Assad are juxtaposed with the exuberance of a night out at a bar.