DUBAI: Yasukazu Hamada, Japan’s defense minister, met with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Gantz in Tokyo on Aug. 30 as part of an ongoing effort to boost defense cooperation between the two countries, including in military hardware and technology.

Hamada and Gantz signed a memorandum on defense exchanges and agreed to continue working together to achieve regional peace and stability. However, the development calls into question Tokyo’s ability to maintain its reputation for even-handedness vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities arrested four State Security officers on Saturday on suspicion of torturing a Syrian detainee to death.

The arrests came on the orders of the government’s commissioner to the military courts, Fadi Akiki, who ordered an investigation into last month’s death of Bashar Abdel-Saud in custody.

The killing in southern Lebanon provoked anger, and activists shared photos of his body, which showed signs of torture.

AL-MUKALLA: Courts in Houthi-held Sanaa were paralyzed on Saturday as Yemen’s judges went on strike in an attempt to force the Iran-backed militia to charge those involved in the killing of a senior judge last week, residents said.

Khaled Al-Kamal, a Sanaa-based lawyer who visited three courts on Saturday, told Arab News that they were empty as judges and administrative workers refused to work in a rare protest against the killing, as well as low and unpaid salaries and meddling by powerful Houthi figures.

DUBAI: The UAE is committed to constructive collaboration with the international community to confront challenges facing the global energy sector with the aim of advancing efforts to realise international stability, an official said on Friday.

HEBRON: A Palestinian was shot dead Friday after stabbing an Israeli soldier at an army post near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army and the Palestinian health ministry said.
“An assailant armed with a knife” approached a military post and stabbed a soldier, the army said in a statement, adding that another soldier opened fire and “neutralized” the assailant.
It said the “moderately” wounded soldier was “evacuated to a hospital for medical attention, while fully conscious, and his family has been informed.”