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DUBAI: Sultan Haitham of Oman will visit the UAE on Monday for talks with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, state news agency WAM reported.
During the visit, both leaders will discuss “the deep-rooted, historical relations between the UAE and Oman and cooperation in various fields,” the agency said.
The two leaders will also discuss a number of regional and international issues of common interest.
SANAA: The Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile over Israel on Monday that had been launched from Yemen, according to a statement.
The Houthis, undeterred by waves of US strikes since March 15, fired two ballistic missiles toward Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the group’s military spokesman said in a televised statement early on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump also threatened to punish Iran over its perceived support for Yemeni Houthi militants.
Earlier, warning sirens sounded in several areas of Israel, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The Houthis have vowed to escalate attacks, including those targeting Israel, in response to the US campaign.
Houthis spokesman Yahya Saree said the group also targeted “the US aircraft carrier Truman, using ballistic and cruise missiles and drones.”
The Houthis have carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since
Israel’s war with Hamas
began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.
The attacks have disrupted global commerce and prompted the US military to launch a costly campaign to intercept missiles.
The Houthis are part of what has been dubbed the “Axis of Resistance” — an anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional militias including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq, all backed by Iran.
BEIRUT, Lebanon: One person was killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon late Monday, after a wave of intensive air attacks in the region over the weekend, state media reported.
“A raid by an enemy Israeli drone on a vehicle in the area of Qaqaiyat Al-Jisr left one dead,” the National News Agency (ANI) said, attributing the toll to the Lebanese health ministry.
Israel launched air strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing eight people, in response to rocket fire that hit its territory for the first time since a ceasefire took effect on November 27.
No party has claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, which a military source said was launched from an area north of the Litani River, between the villages of Kfar Tebnit and Arnoun, near the zone covered by the ceasefire agreement.
The agreement stipulates that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers may be deployed south of the Litani River, with Hezbollah required to dismantle its infrastructure and withdraw north of the river.
But the war has severely weakened Hezbollah, which remains a target of Israeli air strikes despite the ceasefire.
Over the weekend Lebanese officials held discussions with Washington and Paris to prevent Israel from bombing Beirut, a source told AFP on Monday on condition of anonymity.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that following rocket fire on Metula, a town in northern Israel, “Metula’s fate is the same as Beirut’s.”
BEIRUT: A lost generation of Palestinian children is being denied an education by Israeli violence and repression, experts said on Monday.
In the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem, constant fighting has paralyzed movement and more than 800,000 young people had their access to school restricted in 2024, according to a new report by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster, which includes UN agencies.
In Gaza, where almost every school has been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombing, children had just begun to return to classes in bombed-out buildings when Israeli airstrikes resumed on March 18. Nearly half of the 400 people killed that day were children.
“The ability of Palestinian children to access quality education in the West Bank or in Gaza has never been under more stress,” said Alexandra Saieh, global head of humanitarian policy and advocacy at the charity Save the Children.
The Palestinian Ministry of Education recorded more than 2,200 incidents of violence targeting the education system in the West Bank in 2024, according to the new report. These included attacks on schools by armed settlers and the detention of students or teachers by Israeli security forces.
At least 109 schools were attacked or vandalized. More than half of Palestinian students reported being delayed or harassed on their way to school, and many were physically assaulted. Every day, children in the West Bank run the gauntlet of Israeli roadblocks, checkpoints and settler attacks on their way to school.
"Checkpoints are also increasing risks of violence for students, their caregivers and teachers from Israeli forces or from settlers who, in some areas, have taken advantage of the fact that cars are not able to move to damage them and attack passengers,” the report said.
Since January, thousands of Israeli troops have swept through refugee camps and cities and demolished houses and infrastructure, including roads children use to get to school.
LONDON: Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the UAE’s mediation efforts — which have facilitated the exchange of thousands of war prisoners from Russia and Ukraine — during a phone call with the UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
The UAE’s mediation has resulted in the release of 3,233 prisoners of war from Russia and Ukraine since 2024. Last week’s exchange saw the release of 175 prisoners from each side.
Putin and Sheikh Mohamed on Monday discussed ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation and reaffirmed their strategic partnership to benefit their countries, the Emirates News Agency reported.
Putin expressed his appreciation to Sheikh Mohamed for the successful mediation efforts made by the UAE, the WAM added.
Sheikh Mohamed thanked the Russian government for its cooperation in successfully facilitating the war captives exchange initiative. He emphasized the UAE’s commitment to humanitarian efforts and support for initiatives to resolve the crisis in Ukraine and mitigate its impact.
The two leaders addressed various regional and international issues, with the UAE’s president reiterating his nation’s commitment to fostering peace globally, as well as advocating for initiatives to resolve conflicts.
KHARTOUM: Fighting in Sudan’s war-torn North Darfur state displaced around “15,000 households” from the town of Al-Malha within 48 hours, the United Nations’ migration agency said Monday.
From Thursday to Friday, the clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army and its allied militias forced the families to flee “primarily to other locations” within the same area, said the International Organization for Migration.
Since April 2023, the war between the RSF and the army has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted over 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
In North Darfur alone, nearly 1.7 million people are displaced and around two million people face extreme food insecurity, according to UN figures.
The RSF claimed on Thursday to have seized Al-Malha, which lies at the foot of a mountainous region 200 kilometers (124 miles) northeast of the North Darfur state capital El-Fasher.
At least 45 civilians were killed in the attack, according to a toll shared by activists in El-Fasher.
In their statement, the RSF said they had “encircled the enemy... leaving more than 380 dead” in Al-Malha.
The town is one of the northernmost urban centers in the vast desert between Sudan and Libya, where the RSF and an army-allied coalition of armed groups known as the Joint Forces have battled for months.
El-Fasher is the only state capital still under the control of the army, which this week recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum, some 800 kilometers away.
Following months of army gains in central Sudan, analysts say the RSF is determined to consolidate its hold on Darfur, where the Joint Forces have intercepted key supply lines from Chad and Libya since last year.
North Darfur is facing one of Sudan’s worst mass starvation crises, with famine already declared in three displacement camps around El-Fasher.
According to UN projections, it is expected to spread to five more areas, including the state capital itself, by May.
