Severe floods are reported to have continued in Germy and Bileh Savar districts in northwestern Ardabil Province on Monday, leaving several people killed or missing and damage to roads and people's homes. As a result of the hailstorm, heavy rain and subsequent flash floods, the roofs of private homes in Bileh Savar and Jafarabad were damaged and many trees were uprooted, Bileh Savar County governor Sahebali Asghari said. The governor said that heavy rain followed by floods along with strong wind caused damage to as many as 200 private homes in villages in Bileh Savar County.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for a three-day visit. Xi called Abbas a good friend and said that China fully supports Palestine. We have always firmly supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights, Xi stated. China and Palestine have had good diplomatic relations for years, but this is the first time Xi fully committed to helping Palestine restore statehood.

Peace talks between Palestine and Israel ended in 2014. China may have mended tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but Israel-Palestine is another issue entirely. The land dispute in this region can be traced back to biblical days. Historians believe Palestine comes from the word Philistia or Philistines who are cited in the Torah and Old Testament as sworn enemies of the Jews. Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike know the story of King David battling the Philistines to become king of Israel, albeit they all interpret him a bit differently.

The region has been taken over by numerous empires over the ages. More recently, after the demise of the Ottoman Empire during the Great War in 1918, the British claimed Palestine. The British then established a Jewish nation in the region in 1923. Two decades later, in 1947, the United Nations decided to split Palestine into two states one Arab and one Jewish. Arab leaders disagreed with the ruling. Britain withdrew, Israel then became a state in May 1948, leading to the Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949, with Israel claiming control of over two-thirds of the territory. The two have been at odds ever since.

hatred runs deep. The West has fully supported Israel in maintaining its territory, and Chinas intervention in Palestine will be seen as a threat. We especially appreciate the Chinese sides commitment to financing a number of development projects presented by Palestine. We wish the speedy dispatch of technical delegations to implement these projects, Abbas said. China is strategic. They want to assert dominance in the Middle East, where the West has lost its footing nearly...

A high-ranking Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commander has told Newsweek that Israel is concerned over the risks of weapons provided by the United States and other Western nations to Ukraine ending up in the hands of Israel's foes in the Middle East, including Iran. With experts too backing these worries, the situation could mark yet another chapter in a long legacy of U.S. arms shipments being diverted, empowering adversaries of both Israel and the U.S. in another restive region, while the focus of Western governments is on the volatile conflict playing out in Eastern Europe. The Israeli commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic, said the diversion of weapons, such as the Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank missile system, was being monitored from paramilitary forces operating on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war. The Israeli commander said pro-Russian formations were motivated to transfer captured U.S.-supplied weapons due to the close...