The U.S. announced unprecedented sanctions on two Lebanese officers on Thursday, accusing them of sharing intelligence with Hezbollah, which the Lebanese government is trying to disarm.

On the surface, Chinese leader Xi Jinping's back-to-back summits with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin looked pretty similar, with formal handshakes in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, enthusiastic greetings from flower-waving children, and marching columns of soldiers with gleaming bayonets. But the visits also revealed how different China's relationship is with the two countries.

During Trump's visit, China sought to stabilize ties with the United States, while Putin's trip served to deepen its strategic partnership with Russia.

Lebanon's Simon Karam and Israel's Yechiel Leiter, both political veterans with entrenched views, will come face to face in Washington for talks Thursday after decades in a state of war.

Lebanon and Israel have no formal ties, but U.S. President Donald Trump is hoping for a historic breakthrough even as Israeli forces remain deployed in south Lebanon to fight Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Hours after the UAE's top oil executive said the country had "emerged stronger" from war and as thousands attended an Abu Dhabi summit to boost the local economy, phones across the country were alerting that missiles were incoming.

The first attacks since a truce came into effect last month were a stark reminder of its fragility, dampening hopes of a quick return to normality, with Iran imposing a new reality: should the United States or Israel strike, the UAE would be the one to pay.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah is far from the first conflict between them. The two have an enmity that goes back more than four decades, with outbursts of fighting or outright war punctuated by periods of tense calm.

Here is a timeline of some significant events in the hostilities between the two:

The former Lebanese president who once signed a short-lived deal with Israel ending decades of a state of war now says the time is right to try again.

Amin Gemayel spoke with The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday after the first direct talks between Lebanon and Israel since the 1980s, as they explore what could lead to a security agreement or even the eventual normalization of relations. He is part of one of Lebanon's strongest political dynasties that founded the Christian Kataeb Party, which held powerful positions for decades.

The Israeli military currently lacks an effective defense against Hezbollah’s explosive drones guided by fiber-optic cables, according to a report by The Times of Israel.

On Sunday, a small First-Person View (FPV) drone targeted Israeli soldiers in the southern border town of Taybeh, killing one soldier and wounding six others, four of them seriously. As a medical helicopter arrived to evacuate the casualties, two additional drones struck the site.

In a government shelter in the coastal city of Sidon, Mohammed al-Zein saw little to celebrate in the extension of a truce between Lebanon and Israel, saying he was still barred from returning to his southern hometown.

Lebanese town official Sharif Badreddine begged his youngest son not to leave to fight for Hezbollah against Israel in the country's south, but as the tearful father buried his child he could not hide a sense of pride.

In the face of a government push to disarm the group, its supporters call on a long-held enmity with Israel, deep religious beliefs and backing from Iran to justify their sons' sacrifice in the group's latest war that has killed thousands in Lebanon.

Israel says it has established a "Yellow Line" in south Lebanon near the border, where its forces are operating despite a 10-day ceasefire with Iran-backed Hezbollah.