President-elect Donald Trump is demanding the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, saying that if they are not freed before he is sworn into office for a second term there will be "HELL TO PAY."

"Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity," Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site.

The recent rapid advance by opposition fighters in Syria shows that Syrian President Bashar Assad must reconcile with his own people and hold dialogue with the opposition, the Turkish foreign minister said Monday.

At a joint news conference in Ankara with his Iranian counterpart, Hakan Fidan said Turkey and Iran, which support opposing sides in Syria's civil war, have agreed to resume diplomatic efforts along with Russia to restore calm days after insurgents launched a lightning offensive and captured almost all of the country's largest city, Aleppo.

The reopening of Notre Dame this coming weekend is going to be a high-security affair, with a repeat of some of the same measures used during the Paris Olympics and the sealing off to tourists of the cathedral's island location in the heart of the French capital.

After more than 5 years of reconstruction following the fire that devastated Notre Dame in 2019, invite-only ceremonies Saturday and Sunday will usher in its rebirth.

Lebanon is trying to pick up the pieces and return to some level of normal life after a war with Israel that decimated large swaths of its south and east, displacing an estimated 1.2 million people.

The Lebanese military said it detonated unexploded munitions left over from Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon. Elsewhere, the Lebanese Civil Defense said it removed five bodies from under the rubble in two southern Lebanese towns over the past 24 hours.

A fragile ceasefire went into effect in Lebanon and Israel last week but challenges still remain.

Israel continues to call on displaced Lebanese not to return to dozens of southern villages during the initial two-month halt to fighting. It also continues to impose a daily curfew for people moving across the Litani River between 5 pm and 7 am. Many families who want to bury their dead deep in southern Lebanon are unable to do so at this point.

Since a fragile ceasefire went into effect last week, Israel has violated the agreement dozens of times. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri counts more than 52.

The number of violations has risen since Speaker Berri's interview with al-Joumhouria newspaper was published Monday, on the sixth day of the truce. An Israeli drone strike wounded Monday a Lebanese army soldier in the eastern region of Hermel, while another drone targeted a motorcycle in Marjaayoun, killing a State Security agent on duty.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Ukraine for the first time in more than 2 1/2 years Monday, just weeks after he was criticized by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for having a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That call came at a time of widespread speculation about what the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump will mean for Ukraine as the incoming president has promised to end the conflict. In a major shift, Zelensky signaled Friday that an an offer of NATO membership to territory under Kyiv's control could end "the hot stage of the war" in Ukraine.

The International Criminal Court's member states open their annual meeting Monday while the court faces pushback over arrest warrants for Israeli officials, sexual harassment allegations against the court's chief prosecutor and a very empty docket.

The Assembly of States Parties, which represents the ICC's 124 member countries, will convene its 23rd conference to elect committee members and approve the court's budget against a backdrop of unfavorable headlines.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Sunday it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip because of the threat of armed gangs who have looted convoys. It blamed the breakdown of law and order in large part on Israeli policies.

In Israel, a former defense minister and fierce critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and a hard-liner on the Palestinians — accused the government of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, where a military offensive continues.

The Kremlin said Monday that it continued to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after jihadists last week wrested swathes of territory from government control.

"We of course continue to support Bashar al-Assad and we continue contacts at the appropriate levels, we are analysing the situation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, adding that Russia would draw up a "position on what is necessary to stabilise the situation".