Evening recap

According to Middle East Eye's evening recap, Tuesday brought several developments across the Middle East. A Damascus court sentenced Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and former security official Atef Najib to death on charges of murder, torture, and incitement to murder. Yemen's coastguard says at least six people were killed in alleged strikes by Houthi rebels on a cargo vessel near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, while the US separately claimed an attack on a Panama-flagged cargo vessel it says tried to breach its unilateral blockade of Iranian ports. Middle East Eye also reports, exclusively, that Saudi Arabia opposed Egypt's inclusion in the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement that Turkey and Pakistan signed last week, despite Ankara's push to bring Cairo in. Pakistan's defence minister, Khawaja Asif, said the United States and Iran are close to what he called some sort of an arrangement. And Israel and Venezuela announced the restoration of diplomatic relations after years of severed ties.

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