BEIRUT: The municipality has recently removed Hezbollah slogans, images and billboards that had been put up for years on the road to the Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut.

They have been replaced with welcome signs by the Tourism Ministry to greet tourists and expatriates returning to Lebanon for the summer vacation.

Pictures of Hezbollah leaders and deceased party members, as well as the party’s yellow banners, have long occupied the airport road space on both sides and in the median strip.

NABK, Syria: A Syrian desert monastery that was once a hub for interfaith dialogue, attracting tens of thousands, has reopened to visitors after more than a decade of war and isolation.
“We yearn for people to return. We want to see them pray and meditate with us once more, so that they may find here a space for calm, silence and contemplation,” Father Jihad Youssef told AFP, his voice echoing through the dark, empty halls of the monastery he heads.

JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid plans to visit Turkey this week, his office said on Sunday, after months of warming ties but also recent worries voiced by Israel that its citizens could come under attack by Iranian agents in the NATO-member country.
The statement said that Lapid, during his trip on Thursday, would meet with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, who last month visited Israel to encourage expanded economic cooperation.

CAIRO: The US regional summit in Jeddah, scheduled for next month, topped the agenda at a set of discussions between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

The pair met to discuss enhancing economic and investment cooperation, following three days of phone calls between the two leaders on strengthening bilateral cooperation and exchanging views on the developments of a number of regional and international issues of common interest.

SAMAWAH, Iraq: Gazelles at an Iraqi wildlife reserve are dropping dead from hunger, making them the latest victims in a country where climate change is compounding hardships after years of war.
In little over one month, the slender-horned gazelle population at the Sawa reserve in southern Iraq has plunged from 148 to 87.
Lack of funding along with a shortage of rain has deprived them of food, as the country’s drought dries up lakes and leads to declining crop yields.