Spain's top criminal court said Friday it had opened an investigation for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity or genocide into executives at the steelmaker Sidenor for trading with an Israeli arms company.

Spain, one of the fiercest critics of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, said it had stopped exchanging weapons with the country after the conflict started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio toured a U.S.-led coordination center in southern Israel Friday, as the Trump administration pushed forward with plans to set up an international security force in Gaza and shore up a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Rubio was the latest in a series of high-level U.S. officials to visit the civilian military coordination center and the country. U.S. Vice President JD Vance was there earlier this week where he announced its opening, and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, were also in Israel.

Iraq is weeks away from parliamentary elections that will set the country's course during one of the Middle East's most delicate moments in years.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday he did not believe that Israel would annex the West Bank, playing down this week's Knesset vote to advance two bills.

Rubio said Israeli lawmakers had held the vote as a political stunt to embarrass U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

President Donald Trump is suggesting he could call on Israel to release imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, the most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader, as the United States aims to fill a leadership vacuum in postwar Gaza.

Trump, in an interview published Thursday, said he has discussed the potential for Barghouti's release with White House aides.

President Donald Trump's administration is preparing for a visit to the United States by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman next month, in what could be the first state visit to the U.S. by a foreign leader in Trump's second term, according to several people familiar with the planning.

Work is underway to prepare a package of agreements that Trump and the crown prince could sign or witness during the visit, U.S. officials familiar with the plans for the trip said. The trip is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 17-19, but the timing and status of the visit could change, according to two people familiar with the planning.

European Union leaders are seeking a more active role in Gaza and the occupied West Bank after being sidelined from the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

At a summit Thursday in Brussels largely focused on Ukraine and Russia, EU heads of state are also expected to discuss the shaky ceasefire in Gaza and potential EU support for stability in the war-torn coastal enclave. The EU has been the biggest provider of aid to the Palestinians and is Israel's top trading partner.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Thursday that Saudi Arabia should "keep riding camels" if it asks for a Palestinian state in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel.

"If Saudi Arabia tells us normalization in exchange for a Palestinian state, friends, no thank you", Smotrich said at a conference in Israel.

Syrian authorities have agreed a ceasefire with a group of jihadists led by Frenchman Oumar Diaby in northwest Syria, sources from both sides told AFP on Thursday.

Government forces surrounded the camp of Firqatul Ghuraba ("the Foreigners' Brigade") on Wednesday, leading to the first clashes with jihadists under Syria's new leadership since the ousting in December of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday Israel's parliament vote on West Bank annexation, saying the move was an "insult."

Speaking on the tarmac of Tel Aviv's international airport before departing at the end of his visit to Israel this week, Vance said that if the vote was a "political stunt, then it is a very stupid political stunt."