In his just-completed role as head of the Israeli military's Home Front command, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin was in charge of bolstering a network of early-warning systems and shelters in case of rocket attacks. It may have been the ideal preparation for his new assignment.

Gordin is set to soon take over the Northern Command -- putting him at the forefront of Israel's efforts to contain Hezbollah. At a time of heightened tensions, the Lebanese militant group is believed to possess tens of thousands of rockets and missiles capable of striking anywhere in Israel, dwarfing any threat posed by the Palestinian militant groups in Gaza that have battled Israel in recent years.

Egypt's prosecutors have charged four journalists from one of the country's few remaining independent news outlets of spreading false news and disturbing public peace, the news website said in a statement.

Mada Masr said late Wednesday that the journalists were released on bail following their interrogation. At issue is an article saying that senior members of a pro-government political party were implicated in a corruption case.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teen in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinian officials said, after the military said he hit a soldier in the face with a hammer.

The military said the soldier was lightly wounded. It provided a photo of the hammer and a knife, which it said was also in the Palestinian's possession. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death, near the village of Baytin, and identified the teen as Haitham Mubarak, 17. It had no details about the circumstances behind his death.

A group of 61 migrants picked up by a cargo ship from a crippled fishing boat in the central Mediterranean have safely reached the island of Crete hours after a severely ill child on the freighter died while being airlifted to Greece, Greek authorities said.

The Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian migrants had reportedly been stranded for days without provisions on a leaking fishing boat near Malta, after trying to sail from Lebanon to Italy about 10 days ago.

A bomb detonated outside of a Hezbollah-backed Lebanese minister's home on Thursday in the eastern Bekaa valley.

The press office of caretaker Public Works Minister Ali Hamieh said in a statement that the explosive wrapped in electrical wires was detonated in his garden outside his home in the village of Taraya.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unscheduled visit to Kyiv on Thursday as the Biden administration announced major new military aid worth more than $2 billion for Ukraine and other European countries threatened by Russia.

In meetings with senior Ukrainian officials, Blinken said the Biden administration had notified Congress of its intent to provide $2 billion in long-term Foreign Military Financing to Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors, including NATO members and regional security partners, that are "most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression."

The last staff of the Iranian Embassy in Tirana left the building Thursday after they were given 24 hours to leave Albania over a major cyberattack that the Albanian government blames on Iran.

It is the first known case of a country cutting diplomatic relations over a cyberattack.

Egypt's media regulator demanded Wednesday that Netflix and other steaming services adhere to this majority Muslim county's "societal values" - a veiled reference to programs featuring members of the LGBTQ community.

The statement came a day after Gulf Arab countries asked Netflix to remove "offensive content" on the streaming service, apparently targeting programs that show gays and lesbians.

Russian renewed its shelling in the area of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a local official said Wednesday, a day after the U.N. atomic watchdog agency pressed for the warring sides to carve out a safe zone there to protect against a possible catastrophe.

The city of Nikopol, located on the opposite bank of the Dnieper River from Europe's largest nuclear power plant, was fired on with rockets and heavy artillery, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant during a firefight Wednesday in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The violence erupted after Israel carried out an arrest raid in a refugee camp near the city of Tubas.

The Israeli military said it carried out arrest raids across the West Bank as part of a monthslong crackdown on Palestinian militants. It said its soldiers came under fire during the arrest of a wanted person in the Faraa refugee camp in the northern West Bank.