BEIRUT: The body of Lebanese cleric Sheikh Ahmed Al-Rifai, a vocal critic of Hezbollah and Iran, was found on Saturday, a week after he went missing in Tripoli.

At 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, a website in the town of Qarqaf in northern Lebanon mourned Al-Rifai’s death.

The religious leader, who was affiliated with Dar Al-Fatwa, hailed from Al-Qarqaf, Akkar, where he was the imam of the mosque.

Lebanese army forces entered the area on Saturday to maintain security and prevent any retaliatory action.

AL-MUKALLA: At least 11 people were killed and 12 injured on Friday when a pickup truck carrying 25 passengers drove over a cliff in northern Yemen.

Hadi Wardan, from Yemen’s National Commission for Claims of Human Rights Violations, told Arab News on Saturday said that the accident happened when the driver of the Toyota Hilux lost control while navigating a hillside road in the Al-Sharaqi region of Hajjah province.

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories: When Israel conducted its deadliest raid in the occupied West Bank in almost two decades this week, a young Palestinian nurse rushed to help.
As critical case after critical case succumbed to their wounds, Elias Al-Ashqar, 25, let out a blood-curdling roar.
“My father! My father,” he screamed, as he realized his dad was among the 11 people killed in the raid on the flashpoint city of Nablus.

RAMALLAH: A far-right extremist government minister has taken over the administration of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, raising fears of a green light for a raft of illegal new outposts.

Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism party and a notorious religious bigot, now has enforcement powers over illegal construction, and authority over planning and construction for settlements and land allocation.

WASHINGTON: For two decades, the entire world was under threat from an insidious group, which at its peak claimed the lives of thousands through a series of bombings and attacks, including the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which to this day remains the deadliest terror attack in history.

Al-Qaeda, once among the top terror threats in the world, has largely faded from relevance in recent years, with the last attack for which it claimed responsibility being a 2019 shooting at a naval air station in Florida that killed three and injured eight.