UAE-backed south Yemeni separatists have taken control of vast new areas, rattling the anti-Houthi government and threatening to further divide a country fractured by more than a decade of civil war.
Yemen is already split between the Iran-backed Houthis who control much of the north and a fractious patchwork of anti-rebel groups in the internationally recognised government.
By Ahmed Elimam and Ahmed El Jechtimi
RABAT, Dec 10 (Reuters) - At least 22 people were killed and 16 others injured overnight when two adjacent buildings collapsed in Fez, one of Morocco's oldest cities, the prosecutor said on Wednesday.One building was unoccupied, while the second was hosting an Aqiqah, a traditional Muslim celebration marking the birth of a child, the Fez prosecutor said in a statement.
The prosecutor said the death toll was preliminary and that an investigation has been opened.
The collapse of two buildings killed 22 people in the northern Moroccan city of Fes, authorities said Wednesday, in the deadliest accident of its kind in the kingdom in recent years.
The Fes prosecutor's office said in a statement the collapse occurred after 11:00 pm (2200 GMT), with women and children among the dead and sixteen people injured.
Locals told AFP the buildings did not meet standards as authorities only allow two-storey buildings in that area, but the two buildings had four floors each.
By Olivia Le Poidevin and Suleiman Al-Khalidi
GENEVA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Israeli Druze leader Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif urged the United States to guarantee the security of the Druze community in Syria to prevent a recurrence of intense violence earlier this year in Sweida, a Druze-majority province in Sunni-dominated Syria.
Amnesty International on Thursday accused Hamas and its allies for the first time of crimes against humanity during and after their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, with the Palestinian militant group rejecting the report as "lies".
The findings also drew criticism from Israel, which accused Amnesty of bias and of failing to give a full accounting of the crimes committed during the attack, which sparked the Gaza war.
By Fedja Grulovic
SOFIA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - A Bulgarian court has rejected Lebanon's request to extradite a Russian shipowner linked to the 2020 Beirut port blast, citing insufficient security guarantees from Lebanese authorities.
Igor Grechushkin, a Cyprus-based Russian businessman whose vessel transported the explosive material that detonated at Beirut port in August 2020, killing more than 220 people, was detained in Bulgaria in September for possible extradition to Lebanon, where he is wanted over his role in the disaster.
JERUSALEM, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Israel has given final approval for 764 housing units to be built in three settlements in the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Wednesday.
The ultra-nationalist Smotrich, who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, said that since the beginning of his term in late 2022, some 51,370 housing units have been approved by the government's Higher Planning Council in the West Bank, territory Palestinians seek for a future state.
At a cafe in a bustling Cairo neighbourhood, Liverpool games once drew wall-to-wall crowds, but with Mohamed Salah off the pitch, his Egyptian fans would now rather play cards or quietly doomscroll than watch the Reds play.
Salah, one of the world's greatest football stars, delivered an unusually sharp rebuke of manager Arne Slot after he was left on the bench for three consecutive games.
Adored by fans as the "Egyptian king", Salah told reporters he had been "thrown under the bus" by the club he has called home for seven-and-a-half years.
At a Damascus air base once off-limits under Bashar al-Assad, a crew now films a TV series about the final months of the ousted leader's rule as seen through the eyes of a Syrian family.
"It's hard to believe we're filming here," director Mohamad Abdul Aziz said from the Mazzeh base, which was once also a detention centre run by Assad's air force intelligence branch, known for its cruelty
The site in the capital's southwestern suburbs "used to be a symbol of military power. Now we are making a show about the fall of that power", he told AFP.
Dec 10 (Reuters) - Groups operating from Israeli-held areas of Gaza say they will continue to fight Hamas despite the killing of their most prominent commander, reporting more recruits since an October ceasefire as they eye a role in the enclave's future.
The emergence of the groups, though they remain small and localised, has added to pressures on Islamist Hamas and could complicate efforts to stabilise and unify a divided Gaza shattered by two years of war.
