The man convicted of trying to kill Salman Rushdie spent years researching the writer's whereabouts before stabbing him on a lecture stage, federal prosecutors said Wednesday at the opening of his federal terrorism trial.

It is a second trial for Hadi Matar, who was found guilty in a New York state attempted murder case last year. The federal terror charges focus more on Matar's alleged motive for the attack on the renowned author and free-speech advocate in 2022.

Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city in southern Lebanon hit in recent months by Israeli bombardment, was on Wednesday added to the UNESCO list of world heritage sites in danger.

"The site has been directly hit and has sustained damage. Furthermore, its state of conservation is a cause for growing concern, particularly given the possibility of further impacts," the organization said.

The Israeli war has caused widespread destruction in Lebanon, mainly in the south, but violence has declined since the signing of a U.S.-Iran memorandum last month and the Lebanon-Israel framework deal.

In Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, one of several "pilot zones" where the Lebanese Army begun deploying as part of the Washington-sponsored deal with Israel, dozens of residents waited for permission to check on their homes.

Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that what matters now, after the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and President Joseph Aoun in Washington, are “the results on the ground, not just the form of the agreement.”

“The real test after this meeting is the consolidation of the ceasefire and the withdrawals, which have not yet happened,” Berri told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. He pointed out that “the withdrawal carried out from the town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh on Monday hardly counts as a withdrawal, seeing as the town is very small and was not fully occupied.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday dismissed the possibility of a Syrian military intervention against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a scenario that President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated in recent months.

A new round of U.S.-mediated talks between Israel and Lebanon will be held in Italy on August 4, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Wednesday.

"We will host another session of dialogue on August 4," Tajani told parliament, following a round of talks between delegations from the two countries in Rome last week.

MP Hussein al-Hajj Hassan of Hezbollah on Wednesday noted that "what happened in Washington in the summit between President Joseph Aoun and U.S. President Donald Trump amounted to nothing more than a general American rhetoric and promises without guarantees, without specifying any timeframe for redeployment, and without achieving any progress or accomplishments."

A meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that was set for this week has been postponed at the request of the American side, a source familiar with the details told Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

President Joseph Aoun has said that ever since he assumed his post, the state has “worked decisively toward one goal: one state, one army, and putting an end to all illegal armed groups operating outside the state's authority.”

“What we need now is an institution strong enough to achieve this, and the Lebanese Army is the institution that bears the weight of everything I have described tonight. The Lebanese Armed Forces are not just an army; they are the only truly national institution that enjoys the trust of all Lebanese citizens, and the only force that belongs not to any sect, party, or faction, but to Lebanon alone. They guard our land and our maritime borders,” Aoun said at a reception at the Lebanese Embassy in Washington.

The Lebanese-American man who was convicted of trying to kill Salman Rushdie is going on trial again in the United States, this time in a federal terrorism case that is probing deeper into what allegedly motivated the stabbing on a lecture stage in 2022.

Opening statements are set for Wednesday in Hadi Matar's trial in the federal courthouse in Buffalo, New York. It's about 70 miles (113 km) from the arts and intellectual retreat where the renowned author and free-speech advocate was attacked as he was about to discuss writer safety.