Middle East & North Africa

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — We were a diverse group of more than a dozen people, hunkered down in a small hotel in central Khartoum — a Sudanese family and the Sudanese hotel staff, a few British and French citizens, a Syrian family and a Lebanese man.

In better times, the Lisamin Safari Hotel catered to small tour groups that came to see Sudan’s little-known attractions — the ancient pyramids of Merowe and the coral reefs of the Red Sea.

Now, it was simply a five-story place of refuge.

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Israeli troops on Thursday killed three Palestinian militants wanted in connection with a shooting attack that killed a British-Israeli woman and two of her daughters, the Israeli military said, the latest bloodshed in a relentless wave of violence.

In a rare daytime incursion launched as residents were starting their day, the military said forces entered the heart of the flashpoint city of Nablus and raided an apartment where the men were located. Troops and the suspects exchanged fire and the three men were killed.

Tehran; 03 May 2023 (UMMN): Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the US Marine Corps were involved in a tense verbal exchange after a coalition vessel came close to crossing into Iran's territorial waters. During the exchange, the IRCJ officer told the US Marines to speak to them in Farsi, before directing the US vessel to take a different course, reported MEMO.

03 May 2023; MEMO: The Anonymous Sudan hacker group has said it hacked Israel's missile defence systems, including for the Iron Dome, during yesterday's daylong exchange of fire between Israel and resistance groups in Gaza.

03 May 2023; MEMO: Overlooked by a portrait of President Bashar Al-Assad and offering sticky sweets, a Syrian tourism booth in Dubai is trying to seize on an emerging rapprochement with Arab States to win back Gulf tourists it lost during more than a decade of war, Reuters reports.

03 May 2023; MEMO: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) plans to send a high-level delegation to Sudan for talks on the situation in the conflict-torn country, Anadolu News Agency reports.

At least 550 people have been killed and more than 4,900 injured in fighting between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since 15 April, according to Sudan's Health Ministry.

DAMASCUS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began talks with visiting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who arrived in Syria Wednesday on the first visit by an Iranian president since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, according to the state news agency SANA.

An official reception ceremony was held upon Raisi's arrival at the Al-Sha'ab presidential palace in Damascus, where Assad was waiting for him.

Both leaders reviewed the honor guard before heading into the palace and starting their talks, SANA said.

DAMASCUS, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Syria on Wednesday with top ministers, marking the first visit by an Iranian president since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, according to the state news agency SANA.

Raisi was received by Syrian foreign ministry officials and representatives from the Syrian presidency at Damascus International Airport.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, the second such capture by Tehran in under a week amid heightened tensions over its nuclear program.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip killed a 58-year-old man and wounded five others on Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said, even as the latest spasm of violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the enclave appeared to ebb.

Israeli fighter jets struck targets in Gaza in response to salvos of rockets launched by Palestinian militants at Israeli territory on Tuesday. But after sunrise, the violence seemed to subside as both sides signaled they wanted to avoid a wider conflict.