Oman has sent an ambassador to Syria, becoming the first Gulf Arab state to do so after they downgraded or shut missions in Damascus in 2012 over attacks by the government there on protests at the start of what turned into a war.

Kuwaiti opposition figures proposed electoral reforms and a pardon for dissidents in recent meetings with the prince who has since become the new emir, they said, seeking to improve stormy ties with the government that have sometimes flared into unrest.

Mecca slowly stirred from a seven-month hibernation on Sunday as pilgrims trickled in after Saudi authorities partially lifted a coronavirus ban on performing umrah - a pilgrimage to Islam's two holiest sites that is undertaken at any time of year.

A group of Saudi dissidents exiled in Britain, the US and elsewhere announced the launch of an opposition party on Wednesday, the first organized political resistance under King Salman's rule.

Informed sources said that Jared Kushner, the senior adviser and son-in-law of the US President Donald Trump, will visit Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman in early September to persuade Gulf leaders to normalize relations with Israel, as the UAE did, the Middle East Monitor website reported.

Middle East airlines Emirates and Etihad Airways have again asked cabin crew to take voluntary unpaid leave as they try to manage the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to internal memos and sources familiar with the matter.

Top UAE and Israeli defence officials on Tuesday held their first publicly-acknowledged phone call since their countries' agreement to normalise ties, officials said, heralding possible security cooperation.

Saudi Arabia's cabinet approved an agreement with Chevron Saudi Arabia (SAC) regarding the Neutral Zone between the kingdom and Kuwait, the state news agency said late on Tuesday.

The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has asked the United Nations to extend an international arms embargo on Iran, a move pushed strongly by the United States.

Iran has rejected as "unrealistic" a call by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for the United Nations to extend an international arms embargo on Tehran that ends in October, state TV reported on Monday.

An explosion near the Jraischan border crossing between Iraq and Kuwaiti on Monday evening targeted a convoy carrying equipment for U.S. forces, three Iraqi security forces told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia's oil giant Aramco will raise its domestic gasoline prices for August, state TV reported on Monday.

A former top-ranking Saudi intelligence official living in exile in Canada alleged in a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court on Thursday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent a team to kill him in 2018 but the effort was foiled by Canadian authorities.

A large fire which broke out on Wednesday evening at a market in the emirate of Ajman in the United Arab Emirates caused no injuries or deaths and had been brought under control, the head of Ajman police said.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Greece, and Cyprus sent a note verbale to the Secretariat of the United Nations, urging the UN not to register the maritime boundaries deal signed between Turkey and Libyan Prime Minister of the Government of the National Accord (GNA) Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a well-placed source at the UN, reported the Middle East News Agency.

Saudi Arabia's central bank governor said the International Monetary Fund's economic contraction forecast for Saudi Arabia was "more pessimistic" than Saudi Arabia's own forecasts.

Kuwait will partially resume commercial flights from August, but does not expect to reach full capacity until a year later, the civil aviation authority said, as its aviation sector gradually recovers from a suspension sparked by the COVID-19 crisis.

Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed his "continued concern" over Loujain Hathloul's treatment in a letter sent to Saudi Arabia's US ambassador, Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates will cooperate in the fight against the coronavirus, the two countries said on Thursday, a possible boost to Israeli efforts to normalize relations with Gulf Arab countries.

The number of novel coronavirus cases in the six Gulf Arab states has doubled in a month to more than 400,000, as the region's two biggest economies this week fully lifted curfews imposed to combat the infection.