China's role as an unofficial mediator in the latest war in the Middle East is drawing attention across the world as it seeks to project the image of being a responsible global power while U.S. actions are straining its long-standing alliances.

China's profile in international diplomacy has risen in recent years, thanks to active efforts from its diplomats. Long reluctant to get involved in conflicts far from its borders, it has nevertheless emerged as a major player with attempts to mediate conflicts from Southeast Asia to Europe.

The flow of Russian oil to Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline that crosses Ukraine has resumed, Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Saková said Thursday.

Hungary and Slovakia have been locked in an escalating feud with Ukraine since Russian oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia were halted in January.

Two commuter trains collided head-on near the Danish capital on Thursday injuring 17, of whom five were in critical condition, emergency services said.

"We can't provide any details for now about the cause of the accident," police official Morten Kaare Pedersen told reporters.

In areas of southern Lebanon it has occupied since agreeing last week to a ceasefire with Hezbollah, the Israeli army has been destroying homes it says were used as outposts by the Iran-backed militant group.

But the demolitions are happening on such a wide scale that residents, Lebanese officials and U.N. peacekeepers are increasingly worried that large numbers of people displaced by the latest war will have nowhere to return if the fragile truce holds.

Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a house in southern Lebanon where she had taken cover while reporting on the Israel-Hezbollah war. Her body was only retrieved from the rubble hours later, rescue workers said.

The daily Al-Akhbar newspaper says its reporter Amal Khalil was killed in the southern village of al-Tiri.

The body of a Lebanese journalist killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon on Wednesday was pulled from under the rubble hours after the attack.

President Joseph Aoun’s comments on Wednesday came a day before a second meeting is scheduled to take place in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors.

The Israeli military said it intercepted around 40 Israeli civilians that attempted to enter Syria on Wednesday afternoon.

Ukraine is pushing for face-to-face talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyiv's top diplomat said, presenting a potential summit as a way of injecting new momentum into U.S.-led efforts to end Russia's more than four-year invasion of its neighbor.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack deep inside Russia struck a residential building, killing a woman and a child, Russian officials said Wednesday.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard attacked a third ship Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported.

Nour News, Fars and Mehr all reported the attack by the Guard on a vessel called the Euphoria. They said the vessel had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, without elaborating.