Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Syria's new army or the insurgent group that led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad to "enter the area south of Damascus" as his government made clear Israeli forces would stay in parts of southern Syria for an indefinite period.

Netanyahu's comments Sunday at a military graduation led to new concerns over the Israeli presence, and sway, in a swath of southern Syria as Damascus' new leaders attempt to consolidate control after years of civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of people packed into a stadium in Beirut and nearby streets on Sunday for the funeral of Hezbollah's former leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Nasrallah died after Israel's air force dropped more than 80 bombs on the militant group's main operations room in a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, dealing a major blow to the Iran-backed group and political party that he had transformed into a potent force in the Middle East.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Beirut early Sunday to attend the funeral of Hezbollah's former leader, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital.

In the run-up to the funeral, giant portraits of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his slain successor Sayyed Hashem Safieddine have been plastered on walls and bridges across south Beirut.

U.S. Republican Representative Joe Wilson has criticized Lebanese politicians who are planning to attend the funeral of slain Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday.

"Any Lebanese politician who attends the funeral of the murderous terrorist Hasan Nasrallah is standing with the Iranian Regime," Wilson said on X.

Nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike, thousands of supporters of the longtime leader of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah have flown into Beirut for his funeral on Sunday.

Nasrallah was killed on Sept. 27 when Israel's air force dropped more than 80 bombs on Hezbollah's main operations room in Beirut's southern suburbs. It was the biggest and most consequential of Israel's targeted killings in years.

The United States has proposed a draft U.N. resolution that stops far short of a competing European-backed statement demanding an immediate withdrawal of all of Moscow's forces from Ukraine.

Both are timed to the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which falls on Monday, when the U.N. General Assembly will vote on the nonbinding resolutions.

U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy to Ukraine and Russia said on Friday that he had held "extensive and positive discussions" with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky about the three-year war with Russia and praised the Ukrainian leader as an "embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war."

Retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg — who traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday and whose planned news conference with Zelensky on Thursday was changed at the last minute to a simple photo opportunity — struck a positive tone after what he said on the social platform X was "a long and intense day" of talks with Ukraine's senior leadership.

Hamas freed the first two of six Israeli hostages due to be released Saturday even as heightened tension between the adversaries clouded the future of the fragile ceasefire deal.

The two hostages — Tal Shoham, 40, and Avera Mengistu, 39 — were put into Red Cross ambulances after being brought out onto a stage by masked and armed Hamas fighters in front of a crowd in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Soon after, the Israeli military confirmed that the two had been brought into Israel.

The termination letters that ended the careers of thousands of U.S. Forest Service employees mean fewer people and less resources will be available to help prevent and fight wildfires, raising the specter of even more destructive blazes across the American West, fired workers and officials said.

The Forest Service firings — on the heels of deadly blazes that ripped through Los Angeles last month — are part of a wave of federal worker layoffs, as President Donald Trump's cost-cutting measures reverberate nationwide.

Billionaire Elon Musk appeared at a conservative gathering outside Washington waving a chainsaw in the air, showing openness to auditing the Federal Reserve and accusing Democrats of "treason."

Musk, the Tesla CEO who has become perhaps President Donald Trump's most influential adviser, spoke Thursday about his crusade to cut government spending and downsize the federal workforce with the administration's Department of Government Efficiency.