Lebanon

Sweden said Saturday it was resuming aid to the cash-strapped U.N. agency for Palestinians with an initial disbursement of $20 million after receiving assurances of extra checks on its spending and personnel.

Indirect negotiations aiming to halt the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon are set to commence soon, as per reports from Lebanese media outlets cited by DPA.

The most prized pigment of antiquity was processed not from a tangle of root or the frothy extract of a weed, but by drawing out a slimy secretion from the mucus glands behind the anus of murex sea snails - "the bottom of the bottom-feeders," historian Kelly Grovier has written.

The National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and Istanbul police have detained seven suspects, including a private detective, over allegedly selling information to the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.

The Gaza war between Israel and Hamas is a "powder keg" with the potential to spark broader conflict in the Middle East, U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said on Monday.

Turk said it was imperative to do everything possible to avoid a wider conflagration.

Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamist group, launched a barrage of 60 Katyusha rockets at an Israeli military base in the occupied Golan Heights. The attack comes in response to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah positions in the Baalbek area of the Bekaa Valley, which resulted in the death of two Hezbollah members.

The Israeli military intensifies its offensive against Hamas in Khan Yunis, employing tanks and aviation in the ongoing operation. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asserts significant progress, claiming the defeat of the majority of Hamas military units, totaling 18 out of 24 battalions, each comprising a thousand members.

Seventy-two of the 99 journalists killed in 2023 were killed in the Israel-Hamas war, making the last 12 months the deadliest for the media in almost a decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. 

The director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation made an unannounced trip to Israel to meet with the country's law and intelligence agencies as it fights a bloody war in Gaza, the FBI said Wednesday.

The Israeli military said Wednesday its fighter jets "began a series of strikes in Lebanon", raising fears of a war between the two countries after months of cross-border fire.

The military gave no further details of the air strikes, while Lebanese media reported air raids on southern villages including Adchit, Sawwaneh and Shihabiyeh.