The European Commission is investigating the bloc’s biggest sea-borne gas supplier Qatar Petroleum over potentially restrictive 20-year supply agreements.

Saudi Arabia will allow women to drive from Sunday, ending the world's only ban on female motorists, a historic reform marred by what rights groups call an expanding crackdown on activists.

Iraq’s top court upheld on Thursday a law mandating a nationwide recount of votes in a May parliamentary election but ruled that the cancellation of overseas, displaced, and Peshmerga ballots was unconstitutional.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, met on Wednesday with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud about Israel and the Palestinian territories, as Kushner readies the administration’s Middle East peace plan.

The Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen said it launched a missile targeting a facility of oil firm Aramco in Asir in southwestern Saudi Arabia, Houthi-run media al-Masirah TV and SABA reported on Tuesday.

Iran's nuclear chief said on Tuesday that Europe's proposals to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal after the U.S. withdrawal from the pact were not satisfying for Tehran, warning that all sides would lose if Iran is sidelined by the West, the IRNA state news agency said.

Saudi Arabia detained two more women's rights advocates earlier this month and imposed a travel ban on several others in an ongoing crackdown in the conservative Muslim kingdom, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia dismissed a senior figure in its fast-changing entertainment sector on Monday, state-owned TV said, removing an official responsible for bringing shows, festivals and concerts to the conservative kingdom under sweeping economic and social reforms.

Iraq on Tuesday condemned air strikes targeting forces fighting Islamic State in Iraq or Syria after Syrian state media said that U.S.-led coalition aircraft had bombed a Syrian army position near the Iraqi border, causing deaths and injuries.

Israel has indicted a former cabinet minister on suspicion of spying for Iran, Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service said on Monday.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, a grouping of mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite paramilitaries, said on Monday a U.S. air strike on the Iraqi border with Syria killed 22 of its members and wounded 12 others.

Outbreaks of the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) killed 23 people in Saudi Arabia between Jan. 21 and May 31 this year, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani told Qatar’s ruler on Monday that a military approach in Yemen would fail, Iranian state TV reported, after Saudi-led coalition aircraft bombarded Iran-aligned Houthi fighters holed up at the airport of the country’s main port city Hodeidah.

The Houthis said they had a repelled a sea landing near Hodeidah port by forces from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The United States rejected a UAE request for intelligence, minesweeping and airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets for the military operation in Yemen’s Hodeidah, a UAE official said on Thursday.

Iran will begin uranium enrichment at its Fordow plant and will install new nuclear equipment at its Natanz facility if it withdraws from a nuclear deal with major powers, said the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI).

French special forces are present on the ground in Yemen with forces from the United Arab Emirates, French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Saturday, citing two military sources.

President Donald Trump’s nominee for a top State Department Middle East post said on Thursday he would dissuade countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt from weapons deals with Russia that could trigger U.S. sanctions.

Arab warplanes and warships pounded Houthi positions in Yemen’s Hodeidah on Thursday as a Saudi-led alliance tried to seize the main port in the largest battle of a war that has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, called on the warring sides on Wednesday to avoid a battle for the port city of Hodeidah and return to the negotiating table.