The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has said a team of its inspectors are "back in Iran," the first to enter since Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities this year.

Israeli drone strikes killed six Syrian soldiers outside Damascus, state television reported Wednesday, updating the toll for attacks the previous day, which also saw a man killed in the south.

Catholic and Greek Orthodox priests and nuns will remain in Gaza City despite Israel's plan for a military takeover, the religious communities said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Ukraine acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that Russia's army has entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, a central administrative area previously spared from intense fighting.

Lebanon's judiciary agreed Tuesday to the release on bail of more than $20 million of former central bank governor Riad Salameh, detained for nearly a year on embezzlement charges, judicial officials said.

Salameh, 75, who headed the central bank for three decades, faces numerous accusations including embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion in separate probes in Lebanon and abroad.

U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus said Tuesday that Lebanese authorities must put into "action" their decision to disarm Hezbollah, adding that Israel would respond in kind to any government steps.

"We're all greatly encouraged by the historic decision of the government a few weeks ago, but now it's not about words, now it's about action," she told journalists at Lebanon's presidential palace in Baabda.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said on Tuesday that his country would approve the extension of United Nations peacekeepers' mandate in Lebanon for one more year.

With the U.N. Security Council discussing the future of the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), whose mandate ends on Sunday, Barrack told journalists from Lebanon's presidential palace: "The United States' position is we will extend for one year."

Amnesty International said Tuesday that the Israeli army's extensive destruction of civilian property in south Lebanon, including after a ceasefire with Hezbollah was struck, should be investigated as a war crime.

The November 27 truce largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of open war during which Israel sent in ground troops and conducted a major bombing campaign.

A diplomatic row between the United States and France escalated on Monday when Washington decided to stand firmly behind its ambassador's criticism of the French response to a rising tide of antisemitism.

Protesters calling for an end to the war in Gaza and the return of hostages being held there took to the streets in Israel on Tuesday morning ahead of a security cabinet meeting scheduled for the evening.