A red keffiyeh scarf around her neck and a beaming smile on her face, Rouba Assi fell into her friends' arms after being freed from an Israeli prison.
"I missed you so much," said the 23-year-old activist, as the crowd around her hoisted her to their shoulders, chanting "Welcome back! Welcome back!"
Her parents, still in visible disbelief at her release after six months in an Israeli jail, could not take their eyes off her.
The Emirati president of the UN climate conference in Dubai denied Wednesday reports that he sought to use his leadership of COP28 to pursue fossil fuel deals for his country.
"These allegations are false, not true, incorrect and not accurate," Sultan Al Jaber, who is also CEO of United Arab Emirates' oil giant ADNOC, told reporters on the eve of the climate summit.
Tea and cheese sandwiches are on the breakfast menu for Taghrid al-Najjar's children. It should be an everyday moment, but their home in the Gaza Strip is now mostly rubble.
The walls have collapsed, with furniture and appliances buried under concrete.
Until the war, the 46-year-old mother had never left her farming village along the border with Israel in the southeast of the Strip.
Since Friday a truce has paused the fighting between Israel and Hamas, allowing them to return to a neighbourhood in ruins.
"It is only here that I feel good," she said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "the butcher of Gaza" and accused him of spawning anti-Semitism across the world.
Erdogan has lashed out repeatedly at Israel for the scale of death and destruction caused by its response to Hamas militants' unprecedented October 7 cross-border attack.
He has branded Israel a "terrorist state" and called Hamas "a liberation group".
Erdogan redoubled those attacks during an appearance before his Islamic-rooted ruling party members in parliament.
After a career in the shadows, spent in Israeli prisons and the internal security apparatus of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar rose to lead the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip.
Now, Israeli officers say, he is a "dead man walking".
Sinwar stands accused of masterminding the group's October 7 attacks, the worst in Israel's history, which officials say left around 1,200 people dead and about 240 dragged back to Gaza as hostages.
"All views are welcome. All views are needed," declared Sultan Al Jaber, president of the UN's COP28 and head of the Emirates state oil and gas company in the run-up to the climate talks in Dubai.
That welcome also extends to lobbyists and big oil companies, some of whom will be part of national delegations when negotiations start on Thursday.
Here we look at some of the questions that raises.
- Are lobbies allowed at COP? -
Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund is to buy ten percent of London's Heathrow airport from Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial, whose departure from the hub after almost two decades leaves Qatar as its biggest shareholder.
Ferrovial late Tuesday said it was offloading its 25 percent stake for nearly £2.4 billion ($3.0 billion), with the other 15 percent going to French private equity group Ardian.
Ten Israeli women including a 17-year-old were released Tuesday by Gaza militants, Israeli officials said, on the fifth day of a truce in fighting with Hamas.
The release of the Israeli group as well as two Thai nationals brings the total number of freed hostages to 86 from around 240 people taken to the Gaza Strip after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.
Tuesday's release in Gaza was followed by the freeing of 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, under the terms of an extended truce between Israel and Hamas.
Two Palestinian teenagers were killed Tuesday during Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged in tandem with the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said.
According to the ministry, Amir Wahdan, 14, was killed in Tubas in the northern West Bank, where the army said troops had gone in to arrest "two wanted suspects".
Witnesses told AFP that clashes broke out with young people throwing stones at Israeli army vehicles and soldiers responding with fire.
Salem Al Dawsari missed two penalties but scored with a lob from distance as Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal sealed a spot in the Asian Champions League knockout stages on Tuesday.
The winger, who was last month named the continent's best men's player, spurned a spot-kick in either half in the Group D tie against Navbahor in Uzbekistan.
But after substitute Malcolm struck the game's opening goal, Al Dawsari atoned with some distinction for the four-time champions late on in a 2-0 win.
