Retired servicemen blocked major highways around Lebanon early on Thursday as angry commuters stuck in traffic expressed dismay standing in long queues of vehicles in the scorching heat.

The five-hour protest, which began at dawn on Thursday, saw closures of the northern, southern and eastern entrances to Beirut. The demonstration caused major traffic jams and delays in getting into the city.

Mohammed Awwad and his fiancee, both Muslims, recently found an affordable apartment for rent online in the town of Hadat, southeast of Beirut.

The 27-year-old journalist called the number and asked the owner when they could drop by to take a look. He was stunned by her response: Muslims are not allowed to settle in the town, she said.

The US Commerce Department blacklisted five Chinese tech entities Friday in a new move against Beijing's supercomputing industry likely to raise tensions ahead of a meeting between President Trump and Xi Jinping next week.

Dimitris Christofias, Cyprus' first communist president whose troubled tenure was marked by near financial ruin that necessitated an international rescue, uproar over a deadly Iranian munitions blast and failure to end the country's ethnic division, died Friday. He was 72.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades confirmed his predecessor's death in a written message, expressing "deep sorrow." Anastasiades said he and Christofias may have been on divergent political paths, but he did what he thought was best for his country.

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Friday he hopes donors will be as generous this year as they were last year after the United States cut all funding for the $1.2 billion program to help some 5 million Palestinians.

Pierre Krahenbuhl said at a news conference that 42 countries and institutions increased their funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency last year. He called that "unprecedented," adding that it was also "very remarkable" that every single pledge in 2018 was honored.

Iran says it "does not seek war" but reserves its right under the U.N. Charter "to take all appropriate necessary measures against any hostile act violating its territory."

Iran's U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi says in letters to the U.N. secretary-general and Security Council obtained Thursday by The Associated Press that the Islamic Republic targeted a U.S. drone which violated its airspace and "is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea and air."

The U.N. food agency has begun a partial suspension of food aid to areas of Yemen controlled by the rebels amid accusations they were diverting aid from the war-torn country's hungriest people, the group said Thursday.

The World Food Program said it suspended its operations in the capital, Sanaa, which has been under Houthi control since 2014. The suspension would affect 850,000 people, it said in a statement.

It's a difficult time for the Pentagon to be without a permanent U.S. defense secretary.

The Trump administration is grappling with an escalating crisis with Iran, an unusual and controversial deployment of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, the nearly two-decade-old war in Afghanistan and stalled talks with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program.

Syria has released on Friday the two Lebanese security agents who crossed by mistake into the neighboring country, the state-run National News Agency reported on Friday.

The U.S. on Friday barred American-registered aircraft from flying over parts of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman amid heightened tensions after Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down a U.S. military drone.

The announcement from the Federal Aviation Administration came over an Iranian surface-to-air missile on Thursday bringing down the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 jetliner and costing over $100 million. The U.S. said it made plans for limited strikes on Iran in response, but then called them off.