Tens of thousands of Israeli citizens living overseas are expected to fly home this week to cast ballots in Tuesday's national election, a vote widely viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership and security policies after three years of war.

The AID Coalition, a U.S.-based nonprofit focused on strengthening Israel's democracy, says tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad are expected to fly in for the vote. Israeli law generally requires citizens to vote in person within the country, with narrow exceptions for diplomats and certain official emissaries serving overseas.

Israel has more than 7.3 million registered voters, and polling suggests a tight race. Previous elections have turned on thin margins. The effect of the returning voters remains unclear, but many liberal Israelis who do not support Netanyahu have left the country in recent years, suggesting that those flying home to cast ballots would not back him. With outcomes historically decided by slim margins, even small shifts in turnout can matter — one reason the returnee vote is being watched closely heading into Tuesday.

The election arrives against a backdrop of regional turmoil. The developments below — from Houthi fire on Saudi Arabia to a widening Israeli operation in the West Bank, continuing strikes in Gaza and warnings from Tehran — form the security landscape against which voters will weigh Netanyahu's record. Here is the latest from the Middle East as of Sunday.

Saudi Arabia reopens main airport after Houthi strikes

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh reopened to international flights on Sunday, more than two weeks after deadly strikes by Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels knocked the facility out of service. The airport said terminals 1 and 2 opened for domestic and international flights starting Sunday.

The announcement came as the Houthis in Yemen kept firing drones and missiles toward the Saudi capital. Earlier Sunday, the kingdom said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile and a drone fired by the Houthis toward Riyadh, as well as 10 ballistic missiles toward the southern region, according to Saudi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki.

In early October, Houthi strikes hit a complex housing two other terminals at the airport, killing 17 people and wounding more than 330. Last week, the Riyadh airport had opened to limited domestic flights. As the country's main international gateway, its full reopening restores a key travel link to the Saudi capital.

Israel widens West Bank operation days before the vote

The Israeli military pressed ahead Sunday with a broad military operation in the occupied West Bank, launched in response to Friday's attack in the city of Hebron that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three.

The military announced new restrictions barring Palestinian laborers from jobs in Israeli settlements and closed several crossings in the territory. The crackdown, which began after the attack, has included arrests and building demolitions in Hebron, the site of the assault, and the municipality says some 2,200 people have been displaced. Hebron is one of the largest cities in the West Bank.

The operation comes as Israel enters the final days before the tense election — the first since the 2023 Hamas-led attacks and the ensuing wars in the region.

Israeli strikes kill seven in Gaza

Israeli strikes in Gaza killed seven people and wounded eight on Sunday, according to Palestinian hospital officials. A pair of strikes in Gaza City killed four people, two brothers were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, and another person died in the central town of Deir al-Balah.

The deaths were confirmed by officials from Shifa, Hamad, Nasser and Al-Aqsa hospitals, as well as an American field hospital. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes.

A year since a ceasefire deal began in October 2025, Israel continues to bombard Gaza in what it says are strikes against militant targets. More than 1,500 Palestinians there have been killed by Israel, according to the territory's Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children make up nearly half of those killed. How the ceasefire framework and the continuing strikes are reconciled remains a central open question.

Iran says war threats will not change its policies

Iran's foreign minister vowed Sunday that new threats of war will not budge the country from its policies. “Today, again war is being spoken about, but I am thinking about post-war status, whether a war occurs or not, our will remain in place,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told a group of diplomats in Tehran.

He also warned the United States against renewing strikes on Iran and repeated past statements that Tehran is ready to cooperate with neighboring Arab nations in the Persian Gulf. “Everything has changed in our region,” he said. “After the recent war, nothing will be like the past.”

Libya rebuffs Trump's 'terror-infested' remark

The head of one of Libya's rival governments rejected comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, who added the nation to a list of countries he described as “terror-infested.”

Writing on social media, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said he rejected “any affront” to his country or its people, “who have made great sacrifices in the fight against terrorism.” At a Saturday campaign rally in Georgia, Trump accused the Democrats of trying to open the United States to “armies of migrants from terror-infested countries like Libya, Yemen, Haiti, Somalia.”

Libya plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising turned civil war that toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The country remains divided between rival administrations, each backed by different armed groups and foreign governments. The exchange underscores how that unresolved division continues to surface in political rhetoric well beyond Libya's borders.