Israeli far-right cabinet member Itamar Ben Gvir took the unusual step of endorsing Donald Trump as the next US president, saying a return of the ex-leader would bolster the chances of victory against Iran’s allied militant groups and the Islamic Republic itself.

The commanding officer of a Navy destroyer in the Middle East was transferred earlier this week to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt for undisclosed medical reasons, according to the service.

Protesters against the Gaza war staged a sit-in at a congressional office building Tuesday ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, and Capitol Police made multiple arrests.

The Iraqi government has announced an official ban on a Kurdish separatist group which has been engaged in a long-running conflict with Turkey. Turkey has been seeking greater cooperation from Baghdad in its fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and is banned there.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territory of Gaza have had their lives upended since Hamas-led militants invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people.

Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have agreed to form a government together. The two groups made the announcement Tuesday in Beijing after China-sponsored talks. It was the latest attempt at resolving a longstanding rivalry that looms over any potential vision for the rule of Gaza after the war with Israel.

The Israeli government has budgeted millions of dollars to protect small, unauthorized Jewish farms in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, underwriting tiny outposts meant to grow into full-fledged settlements, according to an anti-settlement monitoring group.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week looms as a fraught one between two allies, with the Israeli Prime Minister scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday at a moment of extreme political flux in the United States, and wariness among American leaders about Netanyahu’s history of interjecting himself into U.S. domestic politics.

Pakistan’s Interior Ministry says police have raided the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party office in Islamabad and arrested its spokesman for carrying out anti-state propaganda.

The top U.N. envoy for Syria told the Security Council the threat of terrorism is “resurging” with attacks by Islamic State extremists set to double this year, endangering civilians already facing a “protracted state of displacement and dire humanitarian conditions.”