Yulia the endangered seal did not seem phased by the rockets from Gaza, let alone the missiles heading in the opposite direction. About six feet long and two decades old, Yulia heaved herself last Friday onto a sandy beach in Jaffa, an ancient city immediately south of Tel Aviv. It was the fourth of five days of fighting between the […]

When a devastating earthquake struck in February, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria spotted opportunity in disaster. He called for an end to international sanctions on his country and within days, some were suspended. Other Middle Eastern states sent planeloads of aid and senior officials from those countries soon followed for the first high-level visits in years. In the three months […]

Executions around the world rose to the highest number recorded in five years in 2022, even as more countries moved to outlaw the death penalty, according to an annual report by Amnesty International released on Tuesday. At least 883 executions were recorded globally last year, a 53-percent increase over 579 deaths in 2021. Those numbers did not include China, which […]

Cocaine. Foreign currencies. Firearms. All contraband that customs agents are trained to catch. But hundreds of pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups? Welcome to the age of TikTok-influenced smuggling. Because of a recipe that spread widely on the social media platform, Fruit Roll-Ups — the American-made fruit leather snack that has been passed out to children at baseball games and slumber parties […]

ASWAN, Egypt — It was the middle of the night, but the first thing Mawahib Mohammed did was make a beeline for the shower, the first she had taken in a week. As one of the thousands of Sudanese who had crossed the border to Egypt in recent weeks, she had barely slept in six days and used a bathroom […]

JERUSALEM — In a defiant show of force, masses of right-wing demonstrators converged on Jerusalem on Thursday evening in support of an Israeli government plan to overhaul the judiciary that has deeply divided the country. The crowd was largely made up of Israelis from the religious Zionist camp. Many said they wanted a more Jewish Israel that put their brand […]

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed strong support for Israel during a brief visit to Jerusalem on Thursday, as he promoted his diplomatic credentials in a country considered crucial to any U.S. president’s foreign policy portfolio. Mr. DeSantis declined once again to confirm his candidacy for the presidential race in 2024, […]

Saudi Arabia, like many other Arab states, had refused to engage with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for more than a decade after he violently crushed his country’s Arab Spring uprising — bombing, gassing and torturing his own people in a conflict that morphed into a long-running war that is still in progress. So when Syria’s foreign minister arrived in […]

JERUSALEM — With under 30 minutes until sundown, Anas Shalodi hurried through the Old City’s covered souk carrying a large pot, hot off the stove and wrapped in a green prayer rug, zipping past others making their way to the mosque to break their daily Ramadan fast. In this bustling market in the heart of Jerusalem, where the smell of […]

After eight years of crushing civil war in Yemen, where hundreds of thousands of people have died of violence and hunger, a new round of talks this week has raised a glimmer of hope for a breakthrough in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The difference between these negotiations and those of years past is not on the battlefield […]