The Levant Egypt North Africa Anatolia & Constantinople Border conflicts Sicily and Southern Italy Naval warfare Byzantine reconquest The Battle of the Straits (Arabic: waqʿat al-majāz) was fought in early 965 between the fleets of the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate in the Straits of Messina.

[2][3] Following the Byzantine reconquest of Crete in 960–961, where the Fatimids, constrained by a truce with the Empire and the distances involved, were unable or unwilling to interfere,[4][5] the Fatimids turned their attention to Sicily, where they decided to reduce the remaining Byzantine outposts: Taormina, the forts in the Val Demone and Val di Noto, and Rometta.

[6][7] The Byzantine force landed in October 964 and quickly captured Messina and other forts in the Val Demone, but its attempt to relieve Rometta was decisively defeated, with Manuel Phokas among the dead.

Both powers were willing to come to terms, as both were occupied elsewhere: Phokas with his wars against the Hamdanids and the conquest of Cilicia, and the Fatimids with their planned invasion of Egypt.

Niketas had spent his captivity in Ifriqiya copying the homilies of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus in a fine calligraphic manuscript, which after his release he donated to a monastery, and which is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (Par.