Germany, France and Britain are considering sending their foreign ministers to Israel next week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday, as international pressure mounts over Gaza's dire humanitarian crisis.

"We will probably ask the three foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom and Germany to travel to Israel together next Thursday to present the position of ... the three governments," Merz told a press conference in Berlin alongside Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Israel's foreign minister rejected on Tuesday what he called a "distorted campaign" of international pressure for a ceasefire in the Gaza war and recognition of a Palestinian state.

Gideon Saar told reporters that Israel ending the conflict while Hamas is still in power in Gaza and holding hostages would be a "tragedy for both Israelis and Palestinians".

A Lebanese court sentenced a man to death in absentia for killing an Irish United Nations peacekeeper, a judicial official said Tuesday, after Hezbollah members were accused of involvement in the 2022 incident.

Private Sean Rooney, 23, was killed and three others were wounded after a U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) convoy came under fire on December 14, 2022 in south Lebanon, long a stronghold of the Iran-backed militant group.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he will cut the 50-day deadline he has set Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

"I'm disappointed in President Putin, very disappointed in him. So we're going to have to look and I'm going to reduce that 50 days that I gave him to a lesser number," Trump told reporters as he met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his luxury golf course in Turnberry in western Scotland.

Three people, including a policeman, were killed Sunday during clashes in Baghdad between security forces and pro-Iran gunmen, according to authorities and a member of a local armed group.

Syrian authorities announced that a new transitional parliament would be selected in September, with local electoral bodies picking two-thirds of the lawmakers and the country's interim president naming the rest.

Israel said Monday that more than 120 truckloads of food aid were distributed by the U.N. and aid agencies in the Gaza Strip on the first day of a promised limited break in fighting.

On Sunday, Israel declared a "tactical pause" in military operations in part of Gaza and promised to open secure routes for aid, urging humanitarian groups to step up food distribution.

The Health Ministry said three people were killed in Israeli strikes in the south on Saturday despite a ceasefire, as the Israeli military said one of them targeted a Hezbollah militant.

The United States bas criticized the release from a French prison of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who spent more than 40 years behind bars for the alleged killings of two diplomats, one of them American.

Abdallah was detained in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his alleged involvement in the murders of U.S. military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris.

Lebanon is mourning musician and composer Ziad Rahbani, son of iconic singer Fairuz and a musical pioneer in his own right, who died on Saturday aged 69 after a decades-long career that revolutionized the country's artistic scene.

Tributes poured in for Rahbani, also a playwright and considered the enfant terrible of Lebanese music, who left a huge mark on multiple generations with his often satirical plays and songs that for many reflected a deep understanding of Lebanon's political and economic reality.