The European Union says Ethiopia’s government must reconnect its northern Tigray region to the world as a yearlong partial blockade has left food aid for almost 1 million hungry people stuck in warehouses without the fuel to deliver it.

Tigray has been mostly cut off from the rest of Ethiopia after Tigray forces re-captured the regional capital a year ago and federal forces withdrew. A truce declared by the government in March has led to a significant increase in aid reaching Tigray by road after months of deprivation.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has appealed for more international help to cope with the devastating earthquake that’s feared to have killed at least 1,000 people.

Unknown numbers were buried in the rubble of ruined, often mud-built homes by the magnitude 6.1 earthquake.

Afghanistan’s health system was facing near collapse even before the disaster.

Communication networks are also badly hit.

Lebanon will sign a “final” agreement to import gas from Egypt on June 21, its energy ministry told Reuters, after months of delays to a plan viewed as critical to boosting power supplies for Lebanon’s stricken economy.

A U.S. official said earlier this week that final approval of the agreement between the countries would allow Washington to evaluate whether the deal was in compliance with U.S. sanctions on Syria, after which gas could “finally flow”.

The rights situation in Sudan continues to deteriorate, with ongoing clampdowns against protesters and an increasing number of attacks on civilians in Darfur.

Ongoing international scrutiny is key, and time of the essence.

The military recently lifted the state of emergency and released of dozens of detained protesters, but it has not ended the repression. Dozens of protesters remain in prison and mass arrests continue.

Impunity for abuses remains the norm. It is critical that monitoring by the High Commissioner and the designated Expert on obstacles to domestic accountability continues to be brought to the attention of the international community.

Despite an agreement with the United Nations in April to halt the practice, the Houthis continue to recruit children into their military ranks to fight in the country’s grinding civil war, Houthi officials, aid workers and residents told the AP.

Two Houthi officials said the rebels recruited several hundred children including those as young as 10 over the past two months. Those children have been deployed to front lines, as part of a buildup of forces taking place during a UN-brokered truce, which has held for more than two months, one official said.

UNICEF and the Houthis did not respond to requests for comment on the continued recruitment since.

Israel has threatened to bomb Syrian President Basher Assad’s palaces if he does not cease or reduce military cooperation with Iran within his territory, the Arabic news site Elaph reported late on Monday.

The Jerusalem Post was unable to independently confirm the dramatic developing story, and the IDF declined to comment. The report could either dovetail with ongoing Israeli efforts to rid itself of an Iranian threat embedded in Syria, or could be an exaggeration of such efforts by various interested parties.

Elaph said that the escalation also occurred as relations between Israel and Russia have deteriorated somewhat over the Ukraine war, leading Moscow to give Iran a freer hand in its operations in Syria.

Until now, Russia had been a moderating force on Iran’s presence in Syria and the proximity to the border of that presence.