Mena Today

Israel's wartime election appeared deadlocked on Tuesday, exit polls showed, a potential setback for veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the projections hold, with neither side having a clear path to power but rival Gadi Eisenkot's larger bloc potentially giving him the first chance to form a government.

Human rights monitors criticized senior UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh's candidacy to be the next UN chief on Tuesday, citing her role in championing the country's foreign policy and denying the UAE's role in fuelling the conflict in Sudan.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Joe Raggi warned on Tuesday that Hezbollah risks pulling Lebanon into a new war at Iran’s behest, as efforts to enforce the June ceasefire between the group and Israel stall.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners made a last-ditch push on Tuesday to get their supporters to the polls, warning of surging Arab voter turnout, a tactic Arab politicians denounced as racist and inflammatory.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian held talks in Moscow on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum summit, discussing ongoing negotiations, the Strait of Hormuz and energy supplies.

Protesters entered a Serbian television station supportive of former President Aleksandar Vucic late on Monday, interrupting broadcasting to call for the arrest of its editor, as tens of thousands took to the streets for a second night of post-election celebrations.

Jordan said on Tuesday its forces had killed more than 20 Islamic State militants in airstrikes on southern Syria the previous evening, following a deadly church attack in Jordan that authorities linked to militants operating across the border.

A court ordered a leading independent Egyptian news site closed on Tuesday after its editor-in-chief was convicted of running the site without a licence and taken into custody pending bail, her lawyers and the outlet said.

Israelis surged to the polls at the fastest rate in nearly half a century on Tuesday to pass wartime judgment on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in what voters described as the most consequential election in the nation's history.

Iranian Security Council chief Mohsen Rezaei on Tuesday met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, not seen in public since succeeding his slain father in March, a day after holding talks with representatives of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced six French nationals to life in prison and a seventh to 15 years after convicting them of membership in Islamic State, a Reuters witness inside the courtroom said.

As Israelis vote today in a closely fought general election, Jacques Lemoisson, head of the economic intelligence firm Gate Advisory, believes Benjamin Netanyahu’s fate will hinge less on his own party’s score than on his ability to build a coalition.