Two Lebanese army personnel were killed Thursday after an Israeli drone that had crashed in the country's south exploded, the latest deadly incident for Lebanese troops near the Israeli border.

Under a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities including two months of open war between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's army has been deploying in the country's south and dismantling the Iran-backed group's infrastructure there with the support of U.N. peacekeepers.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that Washington sought direct talks with Iran on ending its nuclear program after European powers moved to restore sanctions on Tehran.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday condemned the "endless catalogue of horrors" in Gaza, calling for accountability and warning of potential war crimes.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said Israel attacked the capital Sanaa on Thursday, four days after a round of deadly bombings against the Iran-backed group.

"Israeli aggression on the capital Sanaa", the Houthi news channel Al-Massirah posted on X, without providing details.

In a wooded valley close to the Israeli border, United Nations peacekeepers showed AFP journalists a Hezbollah bunker they had uncovered in southern Lebanon, a former bastion of the militant group.

The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Thursday on the future of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which faces U.S. and Israeli opposition.

Palestinian groups in three refugee camps in south Lebanon handed over heavy weapons to the Lebanese army on Thursday, under a disarmament deal reached earlier this year, Lebanese and Palestinian authorities said.

During a visit to Beirut in May, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun agreed that weapons in Lebanon's Palestinian camps would be handed over to the Lebanese authorities.

Russia on Thursday insisted it was "still interested" in diplomacy, but would continue to launch strikes on Ukraine following an overnight attack on Kyiv that killed at least 14 people.

"The Russian armed forces are fulfilling their tasks," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in response to a question by AFP. "They continue to strike military and military-adjacent infrastructure facilities.

Israel's military said it intercepted a drone launched from Yemen on Thursday, after sirens sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the drone, but Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since their Palestinian ally Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

Israeli forces conducted an airborne raid on a site near the Syrian capital after bombing it several times, Syrian state media reported.

Israel has not confirmed the raid, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said its forces operate "in all combat zones" to ensure the country's security.

Russia pushed back Wednesday against the idea of European peacekeeping troops being deployed to Ukraine, and downplayed chances of a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in another blow to the chances of a peace deal.