Spotlight
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Lebanon Shiite ministers walk out as cabinet tasks army with drafting plan to restrict arms before Aug. 31 Lebanon's government on Tuesday tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict arms to the state by year end, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said a...
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Middle East Netanyahu prepares to unveil war plan involving Gaza's total occupation Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared Tuesday to unveil an updated Gaza war plan designed to destroy Hamas and secure the release...
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World Iran says detained sabotage cell linked to exiled opposition Iran has arrested three members of a suspected sabotage cell linked to the exiled opposition for attempting to disrupt public order, Iranian ...
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said Tuesday his group would not accept any timetable on handing over its weapons to the Lebanese state while Israeli strikes continue, as the government held a session on the issue.
"Any timetable presented for implementation under... Israeli aggression cannot be agreed to," Qassem said in a televised address, urging the state to develop "plans to face the pressure and threats" and not to "deprive the resistance (Hezbollah) of its capacities and strength."

Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for firing a missile at Israel's main airport on Tuesday, as the Israeli military said it intercepted it.
The Iran-backed rebels targeted Ben Gurion airport "using a 'Palestine 2' hypersonic ballistic missile" in support of Palestinians in Gaza, their military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a joint statement on Monday that "despite the resumption of the investigation" into the 2020 Beirut port blast, "the road to justice remains littered with political and legal challenges."
The statement marks the fifth anniversary of the devastating explosion, which killed more than 220 people and wounded over 6,000 others.

The economic commission of Iran's parliament revived long-delayed plans on Sunday to cut four zeros from the country's plunging currency, as part of efforts to simplify financial transactions.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas said that Israeli hostages would not receive any "special privileges" in the food they are given compared to the rest of the Gazan population.
"(Hamas) does not intentionally starve the captives, but they eat the same food our fighters and the general public eat. They will not receive any special privileges amid the crime of starvation and siege," Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, wrote in a statement.

Donald Trump has confirmed his special envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Russia in the coming week, ahead of a deadline the U.S. president has set for imposing fresh sanctions on Moscow.
Speaking to reporters, Trump also said that two nuclear submarines he deployed following an online row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev were now "in the region."

President Joseph Aoun on Monday vowed that "justice is coming," five years after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut's port for which nobody has been held to account.
The blast on August 4, 2020 was one of the world's largest non-nuclear explosions, devastating swathes of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring over 6,500.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed "profound shock" over videos showing two emaciated hostages in Gaza, with the EU also denouncing the clips on Sunday and demanding the release of all remaining captives after nearly 22 months of war.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Sunday that one of its staff members was killed and three others wounded in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters in Gaza.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met anguished relatives of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza on Saturday, as fears for the captives' survival mounted almost 22 months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 2023 attack.
