(Reuters) - Palestinian protesters fought with Israeli security forces in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Friday, the latest clashes in a fortnight of violence over access to Jerusalem's holiest site. At the Qalandia checkpoint separating Ramallah from Jerusalem,...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has approved sending up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq , roughly doubling the number of U.S. forces on the ground to advise and retrain Iraqis in their battle against the militant group Islamic State, U.S. officials said on Friday. Obama's...

(Reuters) - As Jordan joins a military campaign against Islamic State militants in Syria , tensions in Jerusalem pose a potentially bigger risk to a nation only slightly scathed by the turmoil sweeping the Middle East. The U.S. ally has been alarmed and angered by recent...

Israeli forces arrested four more Palestinians Wednesday afternoon following clashes in East Jerusalem, the Israeli police have said. Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Twitter that Israeli forces had arrested four Palestinians while dispersing a protest near...

(Reuters) - Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday in protest at an increase in Israeli "violations", including in Jerusalem and its holy sites, the first time it has done so since the countries made peace in 1994, government officials said. Jordan has...

BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanon's parliament on Wednesday extended its mandate until 2017, a parliamentary source said, once again postponing elections amid political paralysis and security concerns tied to the conflict in neighbouring Syria. "The parliament voted...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's most active militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, denied in a Twitter message on Tuesday that it had pledged allegiance to Islamic State and it distanced itself from a statement that appeared in its name online. A statement purporting...

(Reuters) - A gathering of millions of Shi'ite Muslims at shrines and mosques across Iraq for the Ashoura religious commemoration passed without any major attacks on Tuesday, under tight security imposed for fear of Islamic State bombers. Crowds of hundreds of thousands of...

(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have executed 36 more members of an Iraqi tribe that had resisted the Sunni militant group's advances in western Anbar Province for weeks, a member of the tribe said on Monday. "They were shot dead in Ramadi," said Hamdan al-Nimrawi of the...

(Reuters) - The Iraqi army must do more to show it can fight Islamic State militants who have taken over a third of the country, French President Francois Hollande said on Monday. The Iraqi army, riven by sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, put up little...

(Reuters) - An Israeli government committee on Monday advanced plans for 500 settler homes in East Jerusalem, an official said, in the face of disapproval from the United States at construction on occupied Palestinian land. The Interior Ministry panel's preliminary...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli court handed a relatively light prison sentence on Monday to an Arab citizen who spent three months fighting with Islamic State in Syria before quitting the group and returning home to face prosecution. Ahmed Shurbaji is the first...

(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have killed 322 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar province, including dozens of women and children whose bodies were dumped in a well, the government said in the first official confirmation of the scale of the massacre. The...

(Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Iran's foreign minister and the European Union foreign policy chief in Oman on Nov. 9-10 to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue ahead of a looming deadline for a final agreement, the U.S. State Department said on Friday. Kerry's...

PARIS (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday a peace process with Kurdish militants would continue after the killing of four soldiers and riots this month over what Kurds saw as Turkey's refusal to help their kin in Syria. Four soldiers have...

(Reuters) - The Swedish government officially recognized the state of Palestine on Thursday and said there were signs other European Union states would follow its lead. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told reporters her government hoped it would bring a new dynamic...

(Reuters) - Israel should investigate all alleged violations committed by its forces during three recent wars in Gaza and ensure military commanders are brought to justice for any crimes, a U.N. human rights watchdog said on Thursday. A panel of independent experts urged...

(Reuters) - Israeli police on Thursday shot dead a 32-year-old Palestinian man suspected of having tried hours earlier to kill a far-right Jewish activist, leading to fierce clashes in East Jerusalem and fears of a new Palestinian uprising. The Al-Aqsa compound, or Temple...

(Reuters) - Israel believes the militant group Hezbollah has probably dug tunnels across the border from Lebanon in preparation for any future war although it has no conclusive evidence, an Israeli army general said on Wednesday. Israel's vulnerability to tunnels was laid...

(Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish forces will not engage in ground fighting in the Syrian town of Kobani but provide artillery support for fellow Kurds fending off Islamic State militants there, a Kurdish spokesman said on Sunday. Islamic State fighters have been trying to capture...