The United Nations elected five countries to join the powerful U.N. Security Council on Friday with no suspense because all were unopposed -- Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Albania, Ghana and Gabon.

Winning a seat on the 15-member Security Council is considered a pinnacle of achievement for many countries because it gives them a strong voice on issues of international peace and security ranging from conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Mali and Myanmar to the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran, and attacks by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.

The outgoing chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran's nuclear program and a military scientist.

The comments by Yossi Cohen, speaking to Israel's Channel 12 investigative program "Uvda" in a segment aired Thursday night, offered an extraordinary debriefing by the head of the typically secretive agency in what appears to be the final days of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rule.

Pharmacies across Lebanon shuttered their doors on Friday to protest severe shortages of medicines as motorists lined up for hours outside gas stations since the crack of dawn.

The two-day strike called by pharmacists over lack of supplies, including infant milk, as well as gasoline shortages were the latest signs of Lebanon's economic and financial meltdown, which appears to be spinning out of control while the country's leaders seem unable, or unwilling, to rein in the crises.

Hospitals in Lebanon warned Thursday they may be forced to suspend kidney dialysis next week due to severe shortages in supplies, the latest in Lebanon's accelerating crises and collapsing health sector.

Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented economic and financial crisis that has seen the local currency collapse and banks clamp down on withdrawals and money transfers. As the Central Bank's foreign currency reserves dry up, the country has been witnessing shortages in medicines, fuel and other basic goods, with long lines forming outside petrol stations.

Caretaker health minister Hamad Hassan inaugurated the country’s largest vaccination center at a shopping mall in Beirut as the government speeds up the inoculation campaign against the coronavirus.

Hassan says the center, at City Mall in Dora area, run by the Lebanese Red Cross can vaccinate more than 5,000 persons a day and aims to encourage more people to take the vaccines outside hospitals and clinics.

Israel's security Cabinet overnight approved a controversial ultranationalist parade in Jerusalem if police approve the route.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the agreement with Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Under it, the event can go ahead June 15 with a plan that is "agreed upon by police and organizers," according to a statement from the premier's office.

To all the struggles of life in Lebanon — the pandemic, the power outages, the inflation, the punishing financial and political crises — add one more: shortages of crucial medications.

But as residents struggle to find the medicines they need, some are finding that their fellow Lebanese are doing what they can to help.

Syrian state media reported late Tuesday an Israeli aerial attack near the Syrian capital of Damascus and in the central province of Homs, prompting a response from national air defenses.

The Syrian state news agency said the Israeli attacks came over Lebanon.

Lebanon's central bank said Tuesday that depositors will be allowed to withdraw limited monthly amounts from their foreign currency accounts, nearly 20 months after banks denied them access amid a severe financial crisis.

The move is a small step toward instituting formal capital controls after Lebanese banks arbitrarily imposed policies preventing depositors from accessing their dollar accounts even as the local currency collapsed and a black market thrived.

Numerous websites went offline Tuesday after an apparent widespread outage at the cloud service company Fastly.

Dozens of high-traffic websites including the New York Times, CNN, Twitch, Reddit, and the U.K. government's home page, could not be reached.