Lebanon's judiciary approved the release on bail of former economy minister Amin Salam on Tuesday after six months of detention over corruption linked to contracts deemed suspicious, a judicial official said.

Salam, who served in the cabinet of former prime minister Najib Mikati from 2021 to 2025, is the only ex-minister to be arrested since the start of Lebanon's economic crisis in 2019.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for an attack that killed Sunday four Syrian security personnel, the SITE Intelligence Group reported.

"The soldiers of the Caliphate attacked a patrol for the apostate Syrian government on the Maaret al-Numan road yesterday with machine guns," the group said Monday according to a statement shared by SITE, which monitors extremist groups.

Over the past weeks, the U.S. has increased pressure on Lebanon to work harder on disarming Hezbollah and canceled a planned trip to Washington last month by Army chief Gen. Rodolph Haykal.

U.S. officials were angered in November by a Lebanese army statement that blamed Israel for destabilizing Lebanon and blocking the Lebanese military deployment in south Lebanon.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky started a second day of talks with U.S. negotiators in Berlin on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP, as diplomatic efforts to end the war intensify.

The official told AFP the second day of talks had started, after Zelensky's delegation huddled for more than five hours on Sunday with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and the U.S. president's son-in-law Jared Kushner on ending the conflict unleashed by Russia's 2022 invasion.

The Kremlin on Monday called Kyiv's non-NATO status a "cornerstone" in talks to end the war, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted some of the alliance's members were against his country joining the bloc.

"This issue is one of the cornerstones and requires special discussion," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, including AFP, during a daily briefing.

A senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader said Sunday that the country would "resolutely support" Hezbollah, its ally in Lebanon, in the group's efforts to confront Tehran's regional foe Israel.

The remarks by Ali Akbar Velayati came as Lebanon faces pressure from the United States and Israel to disarm Hezbollah, which engaged in more than a year of hostilities with Israel following the outbreak of the Gaza war.

The Israeli military said it killed three Hezbollah members in strikes Sunday on southern Lebanon, where it has carried out repeated attacks despite an ongoing ceasefire with the Iran-backed group.

The Lebanese health ministry said three people were killed in strikes in the Yater, Safad Al-Battikh and Jwaya areas of the south.

The Israeli military said it would "temporarily" suspend a strike planned for Saturday that was intended to target what it described as Hezbollah military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

Syria's interior ministry said on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.

Hamas' Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya said on Sunday that the group had a "legitimate right" to hold weapons and that any proposal for the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire must uphold that right.