Region

GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES — Rescuers in Gaza said six people were killed and several more wounded in pre-dawn Israeli air strikes in the north and centre of the Palestinian territory on Sunday.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said five people were killed in a strike on a home in Jabalia, in the north.

Another person was killed in a drone strike on tents sheltering displaced people west of Nuseirat in central Gaza, he added.

The Israeli military has stepped up its Gaza operations in recent days in what it has described as a renewed push to destroy Hamas.

On Saturday afternoon, the military said it had carried out strikes on more than 100 targets throughout Gaza over the past day.

Gaza's health ministry said Saturday that at least 3,747 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 53,901, mostly civilians.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen on Sunday, shortly after air raid sirens sounded in Jerusalem, according to AFP journalists.

"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted," the army said in a statement.

Israel's rescue service, the Magen David Adom [MDA], said there were no reports of injuries related to the launch.

Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels later claimed the attack, saying the projectile had targeted Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military reported shooting down two missiles launched from Yemen on Thursday, with the MDA reporting at least one person injured while seeking shelter from the first.

The Yemeni group has repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023 following Hamas's attack on Israel.

The rebels, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but resumed them after Israel restarted its campaign in coastal territory.

The Huthis recently warned they would impose a "naval blockade" on the Israeli port of Haifa after the country's military intensified its offensive in Gaza.

ANKARA — The US ambassador to Turkey, who has assumed the role of Syria envoy, said Saturday he had met the country's interim leader following Washington's lifting of sanctions on the war-torn country.

Tom Barrack, who met with interim leader Ahmed Al Sharaa in Istanbul, said in a statement: "I reiterated the United States' support for the Syrian people after so many years of conflict and violence.”

"President Trump's goal is to enable the new government to create the conditions for the Syrian people to not only survive but thrive.”

"I stressed the cessation of sanctions against Syria will preserve the integrity of our primary objective and will give the people of Syria a chance for a better future."

The Syrian president met the US envoy accompanied by his foreign minister, Assaad Al Shaibani, his office said in a statement.

Earlier Saturday, Sharaa met Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul.

Since Assad's ouster, the new administration has been looking to build relations with the West and roll back sanctions, but some governments had expressed reluctance, pointing to the Islamist past of leading figures.

The EU announced the lifting of sanctions earlier this month and Washington followed suit on Friday.

Both Erdogan and Sharaa have expressed their determination to work together to combat terror threats in Syria.

Ankara has called for the expulsion of foreign Kurdish fighters from northeastern Syria and has said it wants to help its neighbour fight extremists.

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates breached its May temperature record for the second day in a row, hitting 51.6 degrees Celsius on Saturday, within touching distance of the highest ever temperature recorded in the country.

"The highest temperature recorded over the country today is 51.6C in Sweihan (Al Ain) at 13:45 UAE local time (0945 GMT)," the National Center of Meteorology said in a post on X, just 0.4C off the overall heat record in the Gulf country.

The meteorology office told AFP the highest ever temperature recorded in the UAE since documentation began in 2003 was reported at 52C on Abu Dhabi's Al Yasat Island in 2010.

The desert nation, a top global oil exporter, lies in one of the planet's hottest regions and one which is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

The temperature in Sweihan -- which lies 97km west of Abu Dhabi -- and of 50.4C a day earlier in the Emirati capital exceeded the previous record for May of 50.2 Celsius recorded in 2009, according to the meteorology office.

On Saturday in Dubai, where high temperatures in the mid-40 degrees Celsius were recorded, motorists complained air conditioning in their cars was struggling to stifle the sweltering heat, surprised the phenomenon had hit so early in the year.

On the streets, Dubai inhabitants were still out and about -- some armed with parasols -- and vendors selling water and local juice bars appeared to enjoy an uptick in customers.

The UAE, host of the COP28 climate talks in 2023, has just emerged from a record-breaking April with an average daily high of 42.6 degrees Celsius.

 Extremely hot days 

Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming and that these heatwaves are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.

The number of extremely hot days has nearly doubled globally in the past three decades.

Outdoor workers in Arab states face some of the highest exposure to heat stress in the world, with 83.6 percent suffering from excessive heat exposure on the job, according to a 2024 report from the International Labour Organization, a United Nations agency.

The risks from a warming planet were on stark display last June, when more than 1,300 people died while performing the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, according to an official tally -- most of them unauthorised pilgrims exposed to long periods outdoors.

According to a 2022 Greenpeace study, the Middle East is at high risk of water and food scarcity as well as severe heat waves as a result of climate change.

The report, which focused on six countries including the UAE, found the region was warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, making its food and water supplies "extremely vulnerable" to climate change.

TEHRAN — Long-time adversaries Iran and the United States held a fifth round of Oman-mediated nuclear talks on Friday in Rome, but with no breakthrough reported.

However, both sides still described the meeting as constructive and expressed a willingness to continue the discussions.

Here are some of the main obstacles seen to be hampering progress:

Enrichment 

Iran's enrichment of uranium remains the main sticking point.

The United States and Western countries suspect Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, but Iran denies having such ambitions.

It insists that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful civilian purposes.

American officials including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has led Washington's delegation at the talks, have spoken out against Iran's enrichment programme.

Witkoff said before the talks that Washington "cannot allow even one percent of enrichment capacity" for Iran.

Tehran has called its enrichment "non-negotiable", arguing that such a demand prevents a deal.

"Zero nuclear weapons = we DO have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal," Iran's top negotiator and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X.

Experts say the fifth round of talks saw a collision of red lines.

"This round was uniquely sensitive, marked by the collision of seemingly irreconcilable public red lines over uranium enrichment," Sina Toossi from the Center for International Policy told AFP.

Iran remains the only non-nuclear state enriching uranium to 60 percent, well above the 3.67 percent limit set under its 2015 accord with Western powers, but below the 90 percent needed for weapons-grade material.

The 2015 deal was torpedoed in 2018 during President Donald Trump's first term when he unilaterally withdrew the United States from the accord.

 'Contradictory positions' 

Iran wants the talks to remain strictly focused on its nuclear programme and lifting US sanctions, a stance it has held since April 12 when the first round was held in Oman.

Tehran has criticised what it calls "irrational" demands by Washington and inconsistent signals from US officials.

Araghchi warned that such "contradictory positions", if they persist, "will complicate the talks".

Before the negotiations began, some analysts suggested the United States might seek a broader deal that also addressed Iran's ballistic missile programme.

They believed the talks might touch on Tehran's support for the "axis of resistance", the network of anti-Israel armed groups that includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Yemen's Huthi rebels.

On April 27, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Washington to block not only Iran's enrichment of uranium but also its missile development under any possible deal.

Iran opposes non-nuclear issues being discussed in the talks, citing its sovereign rights and defence needs.

Sanctions 

Even with diplomacy under way, the United States has imposed new sanctions on Iran.

Tehran denounces what it calls Washington's "hostile approach", noting that new sanctions were imposed just ahead of negotiations taking place.

On Wednesday, Washington sanctioned Iran's construction sector, citing its potential links to nuclear, military or missile activities.

"These sanctions ... further put to question the American willingness & seriousness for diplomacy," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X.

In late April, before the third round of talks, Washington also slapped sanctions on Iran's oil and gas sector.

Military option 

The Iran-US talks, their highest-level contacts since Washington quit the 2015 nuclear accord, came after Trump wrote to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei in March.

Trump urged Tehran to reach a deal diplomatically, but also warned of military action if talks fail.

Iran has issued warnings of its own.

On Friday, armed forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri warned that "any US misstep in the region will end like Vietnam and Afghanistan".

His remarks came after CNN, citing US officials, reported on Tuesday that Israel was preparing to attack Iranian nuclear sites.

"We believe that in the event of any attack on the nuclear facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Zionist regime, the US government will also be involved and bear legal responsibility," Araghchi said in a letter to the United Nations published on Thursday.

According to the US outlet Axios, Witkoff met Israeli officials shortly before Friday's Rome talks.

Ultra-conservative Iranian daily Kayhan wrote on Saturday that "coordination between Trump and Netanyahu is leading the negotiations towards deadlock".

DUBAI — Five Al Qaeda members have been killed in a strike blamed on the United States in southern Yemen, two Yemeni security sources told AFP on Saturday.

"Residents of the area informed us of the US strike... five Al Qaeda members were eliminated," said a security source in Abyan province, which borders the seat of Yemen's internationally-recognised government in Aden.

"The US strike on Friday evening north of Khabar Al Maraqsha killed five," said a second source, referring to a mountainous area known to be used by Al Qaeda.

The second security source added that, though the names of those killed in the strike were not known, it was believed one of Al Qaeda's local leaders was among the dead.

Washington once regarded the group, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the militant network's most dangerous branch.

Born in 2009 from the merger of Al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi factions, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen's war, which since 2015 has pitted the Iran-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition backing the government.

Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on rebel-held areas of the country.

The Houthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Hamas-Israel war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.

The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.