By Florence Tan
SINGAPORE, July 27 (Reuters) - Ship traffic through Bab el-Mandeb fell on Sunday after Yemeni Houthis attacked Saudi oil installations along the Red Sea coast, while transit through the Strait of Hormuz stayed low over the weekend, shipping data from Kpler showed on Monday.
Eleven commodity vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Sunday, the lowest level in months, the data showed.
Sudan paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, whose Rapid Support Forces have been accused of genocide, told his fighters Monday to consider themselves "unleashed" in their war against the army.
A day after losing a key highway between the capital Khartoum and the Kordofan region's largest city of El-Obeid, Daglo's parallel administration published a video message where he "released the reins" of his "fighters on the frontlines".
By Parisa Hafezi, Phil Stewart and Raphael Satter
DUBAI/WASHINGTON, July 26 (Reuters) - Iran will halt its own attacks as long as the United States does the same, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday. The development comes as the United States pressed pause on its bombing campaign after President Donald Trump's advisers told him they were running out of targets and expressed worries about depleting the U.S. arsenal.
By Ali Sawafta and Mohammed Torokman
QUSRA, West Bank, July 26 (Reuters) - Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank early on Sunday, setting fire to two mosques and scrawling graffiti on buildings, Palestinian officials said.
The attacks followed an incident on Friday when four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers — one of whom acted as a security coordinator for a nearby Israeli settlement — were killed when a crowd of Israeli settlers, some armed, approached the Palestinian village of Tal, southwest of Nablus.
As Israel heads into a fiercely contested general election on October 27, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as the principal challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Eisenkot's rise comes at a pivotal moment in Israeli politics, with the election widely viewed as a referendum on the long-serving premier's leadership in the violent aftermath of Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Just days before her final secondary school examinations, the house opposite the temporary home where 18-year-old Saba Rabah was living in central Gaza was bombed.
She and her family fled, leaving behind everything they had.
It was only the latest ordeal in a war that had already claimed her father's life, destroyed their family's home and forced them into repeated displacement.
July 26 (Reuters) - Syria is seeking to reach a security agreement with Israel, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday.
He said a deal could pave the way for comprehensive peace between the two countries without compromising Syria's right to the Golan Heights, an area thatIsrael captured from Syria in the1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981.
Sharaa said Syria was trying to involve a large group of countries to pressure Israel to adopt a more balanced policy towards Syria.
"We are avoiding getting into confrontations," he added.
July 26 (Reuters) - Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday a Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel "cannot go unanswered".
Iran said the attack in the Caspian Sea resulted in an explosion that killed one sailor and injured another.
Araqchi made the comments in calls with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Araqchi posted on X.
Lavrov, in a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website, offered condolences in connection with the death of a sailor in the attack.
July 26 (Reuters) - Israel will allow a multinational security force to enter Gaza as proposed under U.S. President Donald Trump's ceasefire plan for the enclave, an Israeli official said on Sunday, a day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington.
Netanyahu's security cabinet on Sunday approved the legal framework that would allow the force's entry to Gaza, the official said. Netanyahu is scheduled to depart for Washington on Monday and is expected to meet Trump on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON, July 26 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has paused attacks on Iran to allow more room for diplomacy, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Sunday.
"He's giving talks some space, he's giving it a little bit of room," Mike Waltz told the "Fox News Sunday" program.
