Vivian Yee

It’s so hot in Cairo that people like to go out all night. It might look like a party, but in reality, one shopkeeper said, “everybody is dead on the inside.”

Riad Salameh, once seen as an international financial wizard, is the subject of multiple investigations and has attracted blame for the country’s economic crisis.

The increasingly bitter dispute has not just affected cease-fire talks but also destabilized a once-strong security partnership between Egypt and Israel.

A standoff over control of the bank had destabilized the country’s economy and raised the prospect of fresh fighting between Libya’s eastern and western factions.

Residents described a scene of flattened buildings and destroyed vehicles after Israel unleashed strikes targeting Hezbollah’s leader outside the Lebanese capital.

The belief that Israel was willing to agree to a three-week pause in the fighting was shaken on Thursday morning, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to dismiss the idea.

For families who fled the Beirut area targeted in the strikes, ‘nobody has any idea what to do.’

In a crisis-racked country where sectarian tensions simmer, many worry that the conflict between Israel and the Shiite militia Hezbollah will end in more destruction for all.

President Kais Saied, who has jailed opponents and consolidated power, is almost certain to win Sunday’s election in the North African country, the birthplace of the Arab Spring movement.

Just about all of the actors in the region are looking for an “offramp” to the conflict, many analysts say. But Hezbollah and Hamas are talking tough, and Israel is not backing down.