Spotlight
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Lebanon
Israel strikes two apartments in Beirut's southern suburbs
Israel's military struck alleged Hezbollah command centres in Beirut's southern suburbs in response to rocket fire on northern Israel, Prim...
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Middle East
US says shot down Iran drones in fresh escalation
The United States said it shot down a pair of Iranian drones threatening the Strait of Hormuz, the latest escalation of violence as the...
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged on Saturday Lebanese president Joseph Aoun, who had criticized Tehran for interfering in Lebanon, to save his country from its "real foe".
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Iran still has "21, 22 percent" of its missiles left, U.S. President Donald Trump said, in a week in which Tehran fired dozens of them toward regional neighbors, despite a sputtering ceasefire.
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The release of frozen Iranian funds has become a key issue in negotiations between Tehran and Washington aimed at ending their war, a senior Iranian official said.
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Iran fired missiles at U.S. allies Bahrain and Kuwait on Saturday, after renewed American strikes against it, drawing a furious response from the Gulf monarchies and further undermining a fragile truce.
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Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Friday urged Iran to stop treating his country, where Israel and the Tehran-backed Hezbollah are at war, as a "bargaining chip" in its negotiations with Washington on the Middle East conflict.
"If I may address a word to Iran, it is this: have mercy on our south, stop treating it and its people as merely a bargaining chip to improve the terms of your negotiations," Salam told a press conference for a U.N. aid appeal for Lebanon.
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Ireland on Friday barred Israel's national security minister and finance minister from entering the country over the war in Gaza.
Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan "has instructed immigration officers to refuse entry to Itamar Ben-Gvir - Minister for National Security of Israel, and Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance of Israel - should they seek to enter the state," said a justice ministry statement sent to AFP.
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Iran's army said Friday it had fired "warning missiles" at two US destroyers in the Gulf of Oman, forcing the vessels to leave the area, according to state media.
"In continuation of operations to counter maritime misconduct and harassment, as well as the hijacking of commercial vessels and oil tankers by the terrorist naval forces of the United States, following the firing of warning missiles, the hostile destroyers DDG-103 and DDG-8 have left the Gulf of Oman towards the Indian Ocean," the army said in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.
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Lebanon's judiciary has charged two anti-Hezbollah activists in absentia with inciting Israeli attacks against the Iran-backed group and sentenced them to 15 years in prison, a judicial official told AFP on Friday.
It is the harshest sentence yet against activists expressing support for Israel, which has officially been at war with Lebanon for decades.
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Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri said Friday that the Iran-backed group would withdraw from the area south of Lebanon's Litani River if Israel pulls out and a comprehensive ceasefire is reached.
"I agree to... Hezbollah's withdrawal from south of the Litani River in parallel with an Israeli withdrawal from the areas it occupies" and "a complete and comprehensive ceasefire without conditions", Berri, who acts as Hezbollah's mediator, said in a statement, as he blasted the rest of the agreement text as too "unjust" and "unworthy of discussion."
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The U.N. on Friday more than doubled its aid appeal for Lebanon as the country reels from Israel's war against Iran-backed Hezbollah, saying nearly $640 million was needed over six months.
"The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is severe and deteriorating," the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said in a revised appeal for the country.
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