At least 41 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday, including 23 in a raid north of the capital Beirut, the health ministry said.
Israel, at war with Lebanon's Hezbollah since late September, has intensified its air campaign against the Iran-backed movement in recent days, especially in the country's south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
After jihadists jailed him in 2014, Iraqi religious scholar Muhammad al-Attar said he would sometimes pull his prison blanket over his head to cry without other detainees noticing.
Islamic State group extremists arrested Attar, then 37, at his perfume shop in Mosul in June 2014 after overrunning the Iraqi city, hoping to convince the respected community leader to join them.
But the former preacher refused to pledge allegiance, and they threw him into prison where he was tortured.
There is a notable absentee from this year's international book fair in Algiers -- the work of French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, who last week won France's prestigious top literary prize.
His novel "Houris" centres on Algeria's civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s -- the North African country's so-called "black decade".
The book, written in French, is banned in Algeria, and Daoud's publisher Gallimard was not allowed to display his works at the fair.
Twenty years after burying him, Egyptian architect Ahmed el-Meligui was forced to exhume his grandfather's remains from a historic Cairo cemetery that is being partially razed to accommodate the growing mega-city.
"Death itself is a tragedy. Here, you are reliving that tragedy all over again," said the 43-year-old, who had 23 other relatives also removed from their family tomb, located in a sprawling cemetery known as the City of the Dead in Old Cairo.
Israeli protesters expressed concern for hostages in Gaza Saturday, after Qatar said it was pulling back as a key mediator for a ceasefire that would help bring the captives home.
Thousands of people rallied in Tel Aviv holding signs reading "400", the number of days since the hostages were taken when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7 last year.
Efforts to broker a truce in the ensuing war between Hamas and Israel have proven fruitless, and on Saturday Qatar put its mediation on hold until the two sides showed "willingness and seriousness" in talks.
Qatar has suspended its role as a key mediator for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until Hamas and Israel show "seriousness" in talks, the foreign ministry said Saturday.
The Gulf emirate, which has hosted Hamas's political leadership since 2012 with US blessing, has been involved in months of protracted diplomacy aimed at ending the war triggered by the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on Israel last year.
Iran signalled an openness towards Donald Trump Saturday, calling on the US president-elect to adopt new policies towards it after Washington accused Tehran of involvement in a plot to kill him.
Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Trump to reassess the policy of "maximum pressure" he employed against the Islamic republic during his first term.
"Trump must show that he is not following the wrong policies of the past," Zarif told reporters.
His remarks came after the United States accused Iran of conspiring to assassinate Trump.
A wave of Israeli strikes on east and south Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 33 people, the health ministry said, as Israel intensified its air campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah.
"Israeli enemy raids targeting the Baalbek-Hermel region killed 20 people, including 11 in the Knaissseh locality," a statement from the ministry said of attacks on the east of the country where Hezbollah holds sway.
Another 14 people were wounded, it said.
Fresh off a flight home, Israeli football fans back from Amsterdam recalled on Friday clashes and violence they said targeted Jewish people following a Europa League match.
Kobi Eliyahu, 40, said people with their faces covered "waited (on) every single corner... it was very frightening to see that".
Another returning fan, Eliya Cohen, said that after the match between Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv and Dutch team Ajax on Thursday, he saw "Muslims looking for Jews to beat them up" in central Amsterdam.
US prosecutors announced charges on Friday in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former president Donald Trump and a prominent dissident Iranian-American journalist.
The foiled assassination plot on Trump was allegedly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to avenge the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a US strike ordered by then-president Trump, the Justice Department said.
