MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares summoned the Israeli charge d'affaires in Madrid on Friday over recent comments about Spain made by the office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Albares summoned Dana Erlich - currently Israel's top diplomat in Madrid - to "categorically reject the false and slanderous statements from the Israeli prime minister's office", Spain's foreign ministry said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's top diplomat Marco Rubio will fly to Israel this weekend amid tensions among fellow U.S. allies in the Middle East over Israel's strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar and expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

State Department Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement that Rubio would depart on Saturday to visit Israel before joining up with President Donald Trump's planned visit to Britain next week.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will leave Saturday on a trip to Israel to offer support before French-led moves to recognize a Palestinian state, the State Department said.

Rubio is going ahead with the visit despite President Donald Trump gently reprimanding Israel for a surprise attack on Hamas on Tuesday in Qatar, a key US partner.

Rubio will speak to Israeli leaders about "our commitment to fight anti-Israel actions including unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state that rewards Hamas terrorism," State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli strikes killed at least 40 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday, local health authorities said, most of them in Gaza City where many residents are staying put despite Israeli evacuation orders because they have nowhere safe to go.

Israel has stated its intention to take full control of the ruined city, where about a million people are sheltering, as part of its plan to wipe out the militant group Hamas, and has been intensifying its attacks, residents said.

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) has closed eight centres providing support to Afghan refugees forced back to the country because Taliban authorities are preventing female U.N. staff from entering them, an official said on Friday.

The United Nations says Pakistan is driving Afghan refugees back home against their will, warning that around 1 million people could be affected. In the first week of September alone, nearly 100,000 people crossed back, UNHCR data showed.

By Jarrett Renshaw

NEW YORK (Reuters) -President Donald Trump planned to meet the Qatari prime minister in New York on Friday, a White House official said, days after U.S. ally Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha.

The official did not elaborate on the timing of the meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani or its agenda.

The Eurovision Song Contest will respect countries' decisions on participating in next year's competition, its chief said Friday, after several European broadcasters threatened a boycott if Israel takes part.

During the past two editions of the competition, the event has been drawn into the controversy over Israel's devastating war in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian activists protested in Malmo, Sweden in 2024 and in Basel, Switzerland last May over Israel's participation in the contest.

AL-SOMARIA, Syria (Reuters) -Syrian security forces stormed the rundown Damascus suburb in late August, toting guns, swords and eviction orders. In their wake, they left the district's homes spray-painted with big black "X"s and "O"s: marking who could stay and who must go.

The raids targeted al-Somaria, home to the families of thousands of former soldiers in the army of Bashar al-Assad, whose toppling by rebels nine months ago unleashed a wave of violence against the minority Alawite group to which he belongs.

The UN General Assembly will vote on Friday whether to back the "New York Declaration," a resolution which seeks to breathe new life into the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine -- without the involvement of Hamas.

Although Israel has criticized UN bodies for nearly two years over their failure to condemn Hamas's attack on October 7, 2023, the declaration, presented by France and Saudi Arabia, leaves no ambiguity.

By Huseyin Hayatsever and Jonathan Spicer

ANKARA (Reuters) -A Turkish court will decide on Monday whether to oust the head of the main opposition, in what some see as a test of the country's shaky balance between democracy and autocracy after a nearly year-long legal crackdown on the party.

Hundreds of members of the Republican People's Party (CHP) have been jailed pending trial in a sprawling probe into alleged corruption and terrorism links, among them President Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival - Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.