Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Jordan's top diplomat Ayman Safadi met Monday in Damascus and discussed war refugees and a crackdown on cross-border drug smuggling, Amman's foreign ministry said.

Safadi's visit comes at a time of increasing regional engagement with the Assad regime, peaking with Damascus's return to the Arab League after years of isolation since Syria's war began in 2011.

Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard is the latest star name to make the move to Saudi Arabia after signing a deal to become head coach of Al-Ettifaq.

The 43-year-old has been out of the game since being sacked by Aston Villa in October.

Gerrard had previously said he had turned down an offer to head to the Gulf state, but has now been lured by the riches on offer.

"Where legends are found. We're thrilled to announce Steven Gerrard is our new head coach," the club said in a post on Twitter.

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Monday at Israel's Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv for the latest demonstration against the government and its planned legal reform, an AFP correspondent reported.

Blowing horns, banging drums and holding placards reading "Democracy will win," the crowd blocked the access of vehicles to the airport's main international arrival and departure terminal.

Opponents of the controversial overhaul proposals, which would give politicians more power over the courts, believe they could open the way to more authoritarian government.

Thousands of dead fish have washed ashore in southeast Iraq, prompting an official investigation into the wildlife disaster that officials said Monday may be linked to drought conditions.

An AFP photographer saw thousands of small fish washed up on the banks of the Amshan river in Majar al-Kabir, an area in Maysan province that borders Iran.

The region is home to fabled marshes in the floodplain of the Tigris river, already suffering from the effects of global warming.

The oil-rich United Arab Emirates said it would triple renewable energy production as part of a raft of environmental initiatives announced on Monday, months before it hosts UN climate talks.

The UAE, one of the world's biggest exporters of emissions-producing crude oil, also unveiled national strategies on hydrogen and electric cars.

Few details were revealed about the new policies, announced five months before the COP28 talks in Dubai where nearly 200 nations will wrestle with how to tackle global warming and its impacts.

The family of a jailed British-Egyptian activist on Monday held a vigil outside the foreign ministry in London to highlight a call by 100 British lawmakers for "fresh approaches" to secure his release.

The pro-democracy and rights campaigner Alaa Abdel Fattah is serving a five-year prison sentence for "spreading false news" by sharing a Facebook post about police brutality.

He was a key figure in the 2011 revolt that topped Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak, and was given British citizenship in 2022 through his British-born mother.

Oil prices reversed into the red Monday on global growth concerns, despite fresh output cuts by key producers Saudi Arabia and Russia aimed at propping up prices.

Although Asian stock markets advanced as easing inflation data fuelled hopes that central banks could be nearing the end of their interest rate hiking cycle, European stocks ended mostly lower.

Meanwhile, Wall Street stocks edged up to end a shortened trading session, with investor sentiment subdued on the eve of the Independence Day holiday in the United States.

Beirut motorists pull up to a drive-through counter -- not for fast-food, but to exchange empty bottles and cardboard for cash, a novelty in a country long plagued by garbage crises.

Festering landfills often overflow in crisis-hit Lebanon, waste is burnt illegally at informal dump sites and rubbish floats off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea.

State-run recycling has largely fallen by the wayside in a nation that has been grappling with a three-year-long economic collapse.

Israel's army on Wednesday declared the end of a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank that killed 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier over the previous two days.

The raid, involving hundreds of forces, drone strikes and armoured bulldozers, targeted the northern West Bank city of Jenin, a centre for multiple armed Palestinian groups.

Thousands of Palestinian mourners joined a funeral procession in Jenin for those killed, where militants fired gunshots into the air and the crowd chanted "With our souls and blood, we will sacrifice for you, martyr!"

Fierce fighting between the forces of rival generals shook the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Sunday as disease and malnutrition threatened the rising number of displaced.

Khartoum residents said they were shaken awake by warplanes and "violent fighting" between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Witnesses told AFP a police base and the state television building in the capital's northwest were under attack by the RSF, who said they had shot down an army MiG fighter.