Lebanon's health ministry said two people were killed in Israeli strikes in the south of the country on Thursday, despite a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.

Israel's military said Friday it launched air strikes near the presidential palace in Damascus after the Israeli defense minister threatened intervention if Syrian authorities failed to protect the Druze minority.

Syria's Druze spiritual leader has condemned a "genocidal campaign" against his community after sectarian clashes killed 102 people.

A group of activists organizing an aid boat for Gaza said it was attacked on Friday by Israeli drones in international waters off Malta as they headed towards the Palestinian territory.

The United States said it expected new nuclear talks to take place soon with Iran but President Donald Trump vowed to enforce sanctions and called for global boycott of "any amount" of Iranian oil or petrochemicals.

Iran said that a fourth round of talks with the Trump administration, which had been set to take place this weekend in Rome, had been delayed.

The United Arab Emirates will lift a ban on its citizens traveling to Lebanon that was imposed during a diplomatic row in 2021, according to a joint statement on Thursday.

The Lebanese Army has dismantled "over 90 percent" of Hezbollah's infrastructure near the border with Israel since a November ceasefire, a security official said.

"We have dismantled over 90 percent of the infrastructure in the area south of the Litani," the official, who requested anonymity as the matter is sensitive, told AFP.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblat has urged members of the minority community in Syria to reject "Israeli interference" following Israeli threats against Damascus authorities if they harm the Druze.

"Preserving the (Druze) brothers (in Syria) involves rejecting Israeli interference," Jumblat said following a meeting with Druze figures in Beirut to discuss sectarian violence that erupted in Syria this week.

Assailants killed 15 fighters from the Druze minority in an ambush near the Syrian capital, a war monitor said Thursday, after days of deadly sectarian clashes.

Syria said Israel launched new strikes near Damascus on Wednesday, after sectarian clashes left nearly 40 dead in two days and Israel warned against attacks targeting the Druze minority.

The United States and Ukraine on Wednesday signed a minerals deal after a two-month delay, in what President Donald Trump's administration called a new form of U.S. commitment to Kyiv after the end of military aid.

Ukraine said it secured key interests after protracted negotiations, including full sovereignty over its own rare earths, which are vital for new technologies and largely untapped.