The Biden administration is admitting Israel into a select group of countries whose citizens are allowed to travel to the United States without getting a visa in advance.

A raging fire seemingly caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a Christian wedding consumed a hall packed with guests in northern Iraq, killing at least 100 people and injuring 150 others as authorities warned Wednesday the death toll could still rise.

Saudi Arabia’s newly appointed envoy to the Palestinian Authority presented his credentials to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his first visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday, a trip linked to American efforts to normalize ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Lebanese security forces have detained a man suspected of being behind last week’s shooting outside the U.S.-embassy north of Beirut in which no one was hurt.

The Islamic State Group operator, Abu Halil al-Fad’ani, “was assessed to have relationships throughout the ISIS network in the region,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Bahrain’s military command says one of its officers and a soldier were killed in a drone attack by Yemeni rebels while patrolling the Yemen-Saudi border.

The fighting in a region where hundreds of American troops are deployed has pointed to dangerous seams in a coalition that has kept on a lid on the defeated Islamic State group for years.

The Biden administration is poised to admit Israel this week into an exclusive club that will allow its citizens to travel to the United States without a U.S. visa despite Washington’s ongoing concerns about the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian Americans.

Israel has been carrying out stepped-up military raids, primarily in the northern West Bank, for the past year and a half in what it says is a campaign to root out Palestinian militants and thwart future attacks.

Washington has long aided Cairo’s autocratic regime, despite human rights concerns. Bribery allegations involving the powerful New Jersey senator could imperil that longstanding arrangement.