Damascus thwarted on Monday an attempt to smuggle weapons into Lebanon, state media reported, days after Israel struck several border crossings between the two countries, saying they were used by Hezbollah.

The official SANA news agency said security forces intercepted the shipment in a car in the Bureij area, near the border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said Monday that Hezbollah will not remain “neutral” should Iran come under a new attack, but added that it would choose whether to intervene or not at the appropriate time.

“When (U.S. President Donald) Trump threatens (Iran’s supreme leader) Imam (Ali) Khamenei, he is threatening tens of millions who follow this leader,” Qassem said via video link during a Hezbollah rally in solidarity with Iran.

Nearly 3.8 billion people could face extreme heat by 2050 and while tropical countries will bear the brunt cooler regions will also need to adapt, scientists said Monday.

Demand for cooling will "drastically" increase in giant countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Nigeria, where hundreds of millions of people lack air conditioning or other means of beating the heat.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated in Sicily after a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) section of cliff crumbled during a storm, leaving houses perched perilously on the edge, authorities said on Monday.

Land was continuing to give way due to rain that has soaked the area in recent days, said the mayor of the southern hill town of Niscemi.

The United Arab Emirates will not allow attacks on Iran to be launched from its territory, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Last week, President Donald Trump said a U.S. "armada" was heading toward the Gulf and that Washington was watching Iran closely after a bloody crackdown on protesters.

Saudi Arabia said it hoped to have "strong, positive" ties with the UAE, the kingdom's foreign minister said on Monday, but stressed that future relations were contingent on Abu Dhabi's complete withdrawal from Yemen.

"The kingdom is always keen on having a strong, positive relationship with the UAE," Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said during a press conference in Warsaw.

The Israeli military said on Monday that the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza, Ran Gvili, had been identified and repatriated to Israel for burial.

"Following the identification process conducted by the National Forensic Centre, in cooperation with the Israeli police and the military rabbinate, representatives of the (Israeli military) informed the family of hostage Ran Gvili... that their loved one had been formally identified and repatriated for burial," an army statement said.

Kurdish forces in Syria accused Damascus of killing five people in an attack near the northern town of Kobane on Monday, despite a ceasefire between the two sides.

The incident came as the Syrian government and Kurdish forces traded blame over breaching their ceasefire agreement, which was extended by 15 days on Saturday.

The price of gold hit fresh records Monday after reaching $5,000 an ounce for the first time on rising global uncertainty and turmoil set off by US President Donald Trump's policies.

Gold reached $5,111.07 an ounce having topped the key landmark in Asian trading hours.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Monday denounced Russia's "stubborn insistence on the crucial territorial issue" following talks between Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. envoys last week in Abu Dhabi.

"What I am hearing and reading today, including from the negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, is only Russia's stubborn insistence on the crucial territorial issue," Wadephul said in Riga. "And if there is no flexibility here, I fear that the negotiations may still take a long time or may not be successful at this stage."