Top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio began a visit to Israel on Sunday, after expressing the Trump administration's unwavering support for its ally in the war with Hamas despite a strike in Qatar that drew broad criticism of Israel.

Lebanese authorities said that one person was killed Friday in an Israeli strike on the country's south near the border, the latest deadly raid this week despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

"An Israeli enemy strike on the town of Aitaroun killed one person," the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said that Damascus is negotiating with Israel to reach a security agreement that would see Israel leave areas it occupied after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad on December 8, Israel deployed troops to the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The Israeli military said Saturday that more than 250,000 people have fled Gaza City for other parts of the territory over the past few weeks, since it intensified its assault on Gaza's largest urban center.

"According to IDF (military) estimates, more than a quarter of a million residents of Gaza City have moved out of the city for their own safety," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee said on X.

Russia's central bank on Friday cut its key interest rate, but warned inflation was still too high, amid growing concerns over an economic slowdown amid the Ukraine offensive.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced that the suspect had been taken into custody over the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk after a massive manhunt.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday his patience with Russia's Vladimir Putin was running out and hinted at tough sanctions over the war in Ukraine -- while suggesting Kyiv also needed to compromise.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez of levelling a "genocidal threat" against Israel, drawing an outraged response from Madrid on Friday.

Two people were wounded in a stabbing attack at a hotel in Tzuba, an Israeli kibbutz less than 10 kilometers west of Jerusalem, medics said, with police reporting that the Palestinian assailant had been arrested.

"EMT (emergency medical technician) and paramedics are treating two stabbing victims and evacuating them to hospital, including a 60-year-old male in serious condition and a 23-year-old male in moderate condition," according to a statement by Israel's Magen David Adom emergency service.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Friday with Qatar's prime minister after an Israeli strike on Hamas in the U.S. partner, the State Department said.

Rubio, who is also President Donald Trump's national security advisor, will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the White House, a State Department schedule said.