Members of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's outgoing coalition and the opposition led by ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu have been sparring in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, since last week over a dissolution bill. 

All eyes are on Saudi Arabia, which Biden will visit in mid-July after he once vowed to treat the kingdom as a "pariah" state over the 2018 murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The government has said it wants to fast-track the bill but the opposition led by ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu will attempt to block its passage in a bid to form a replacement government without the need for what would be Israel's fifth election in less than four years.

The 5.9 magnitude quake struck hardest in the rugged terrain of the east, where people already live hardscrabble lives in a country in the grip of a humanitarian disaster made worse by the Taliban takeover in August.

The two-day China-Horn of Africa Conference on Security, Governance and Development in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, the first of its kind, ended Tuesday.

In a telephone call to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who will become caretaker prime minister in an unwieldy coalition arrangement, Blinken confirmed that President Joe Biden still plans to visit Israel next month.

In April, Erdogan went to Saudi Arabia after a months-long drive to mend relations between the regional powers, including dropping the trial over Khashoggi's 2018 murder in Istanbul.

Bennett and Lapid forged an ideologically disparate alliance one year ago, counting eight-parties broadly united on the desire to end the tenure of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. 

"We can expect the president to see the crown prince" during his July visit to Saudi Arabia, the official said Tuesday, quoted by AFP.

Biden's trip, which is expected to take place around mid-July, could include a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the source said.

The decaying 45-year-old oil tanker known as the FSO Safer, long used as a floating storage platform and now abandoned off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida, has not been serviced since Yemen was plunged into civil war.

The ruling opened the way for one of the largest displacements since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East war. But residents are refusing to leave, hoping their resilience and international pressure will keep Israel from carrying out the evictions.

Sources have said Biden was planning a trip to Saudi Arabia, along with a trip to Europe and Israel in late June. The White House has said the president feels that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is a "pariah" for his role in the killing of a political opponent, Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Turkey in 2018.

Biden confirmed last week he was considering a trip to the conservative kingdom -- a stark reversal after he called for it to be made a pariah state during his successful campaign for the presidency.

Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have committed to boosting economic, trade and people-to-people ties as travel between the two countries resumes just in time for the haj pilgrimage season.

Officials said that while Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia was not yet confirmed, the expected visit will serve US national interests, regardless of 36-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's involvement in the 2018 murder of Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post.

Monkeypox, a usually mild viral infection, is endemic in the African countries of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.

Fars news said investigations into the cause of the accident were under way.

French President Emmanuel Macron, on the maiden foreign trip of his second term, was the first of a number of Western leaders to meet "MBZ", the oil-rich Gulf state's long-time de facto ruler who was appointed on Saturday, a day after the death of his ailing half-brother Sheikh Khalifa.

The State Department designated Kahane Chai as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, three years after its supporter Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Sheikh Mohammed, now ruler of wealthy Abu Dhabi emirate, steered the Western-allied Gulf state, an OPEC oil producer and regional business hub, for years before being elected the UAE's third president by a federal supreme council on Saturday.

Blinken, during his flight Saturday to Berlin for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, offered "deep condolences" in a phone call with family members of Shireen Abu Akleh, a State Department official said.

"The Israel Police Commissioner in coordination with the Minister of Public Security has instructed that an investigation be conducted into the incident," the police said in a statement.

"In a blatant murder, violating international laws and norms, the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Palestine," the statement said, calling on the international community to hold the Israeli occupation forces accountable for their "intentional targeting and killing" of the journalist.

The US Treasury Department in a statement accused those designated of playing a key role in facilitating the travel of extremists to Syria and other areas where Islamic State operates, and of conducting financial transfers to support the group's efforts in Syria-based displaced persons camps.

The kingdom has generally sought to quell speculation over the health of the 86-year-old monarch, who has ruled the top oil exporter and the Arab world's biggest economy since 2015.

A proposal by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to delegate some services to other United Nations agencies has sparked outrage among Palestinians, who have warned of a plot to "dismantle" the body. 

A Palestinian man and an Israeli guard were killed in separate West Bank incidents following clashes on Friday.

The presidency said Erdogan will discuss Ankara's relations with the kingdom in meetings during the trip, as well as ways to increase cooperation.

According to a 134-page document seen by Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera and sent to the Paris court of appeal in March, a fire on board was likely to have been caused by the conjunction of two factors.