A Russian aircraft flew "dangerously close" to a US drone over Syria earlier this week in violation of established protocols and international norms, the White House said on Wednesday. "We have seen the early reports of a second Russian fighter aircraft this week, flying dangerously close to our drone on a defeat ISIS mission," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in a press briefing. The US military said on Tuesday the Russian fighter jet hit the US drone with a flare and "severely" damaged its propeller over Syria, according to Reuters.
The United Nations has recognized the need to scale up assistance in Sudan, according to the United Nations Integrated Transition Support Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS). The UN agencies in Sudan held a meeting Wednesday in Port Sudan, announcing they are jointly mounting efforts to scale up humanitarian assistance for over three million displaced by the conflict, the majority being women and children.
Lebanese officials were in a last-minute scramble on Wednesday to avoid leaving the crisis-hit country's central bank without a leader when governor Riad Salameh's 30-year tenure ends next week. The prospect of a vacuum at the top of the central bank has added to concerns about the further fragmentation of the state as it barrels towards a fifth year of financial turmoil.
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager when clashes erupted during an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said it was checking the report. The ministry, which identified the person killed as a 14-year-old, said clashes broke out overnight after Israeli troops entered the Palestinian city of Qalqiliya. Residents said a group of Palestinian youth threw stones at the soldiers operating in the area, Reuters reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held on Wednesday a tripartite closed meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and head of Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh in Ankara. Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the talks focused on the meeting of the general secretaries to be held in Cairo on July 29-30 and the efforts to make the inter-Palestinian dialogue a success.