Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Sunday that Israel had been unable to break his Iran-backed group, at a ceremony marking two years since Israel killed the group's longtime leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah has demonstrated that Israel and its soldiers "were unable to achieve their goals to break the resistance, end its existence, consolidate the Israeli occupation and establish settlements in Lebanon," Qassem said in an address televised at a gathering in Beirut's southern suburbs attended by thousands of the group's supporters in commemoration of Nasrallah.

Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Sunday for the annexation of areas of south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip currently under Israeli military control and for Israeli forces to "go to war" against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

"I would like us to annex at least as far as the Yellow Line in Gaza (which demarcates the areas under Hamas and Israeli control) and as far as the Litani River in Lebanon... because if a war ends along the same lines where it began, what will deter the enemy from going to war again," Smotrich said in a podcast for Israeli news site Ynet.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that he had sent envoys around the world to pressure countries to economically isolate Iran, hailing new restrictions targeting the country's airlines and banks.

"At my direction, teams were dispatched across the globe to engage with countries and demand action against the Iranian regime," he said on X. "These efforts are delivering results."

Iran stood firm Sunday on its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, despite U.S. President Donald Trump's rejection of the proposal that had created some optimism for breaking the Mideast war stalemate.

The waterway is key to the world's energy supply and is now central to the conflict between Washington and Tehran, which was triggered nearly seven months ago with deadly strikes on Iran.

Parents across Riyadh received emails from schools on Sunday announcing a last-minute plan to shift to remote learning for a week, according to messages seen by AFP.

"We have just been informed by Saudi authorities that schools must remain closed all week," read two separate messages seen by AFP.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam insisted at the U.N. on the need to "avert the vacuum" that would be caused by withdrawing the peacekeeping mission deployed in the country's south without a viable replacement.

Under U.S. pressure, the U.N. Security Council decided last month to fix December as the end of the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has been deployed since 1978.

The Iraqi government said Saturday it was holding talks with the United States to secure an exemption from then ban on Iranian airlines, which has disrupted travel for patients, students and pilgrims.

All Iraqi airports enforced the ban this week, resulting in major disruption at the airport of the holy city of Najaf, the main destination for Iranian flights to Iraq.

The United States had yet to publicly respond on Saturday after Iran offered a plan to reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz, though reports indicated that President Donald Trump had rejected the proposal.

China and the United States agreed to set up a "communication channel" for artificial intelligence incidents, both sides said, after a Washington summit short on breakthroughs.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan will hold chief of staff talks to support the kingdom, Riyadh said in a statement on Friday, as Yemen's Houthis ramp up attacks on the world's top crude exporter.

The Iran-backed group has escalated its attacks on the kingdom since July, ending a years-long truce and declaring a maritime blockade, hitting Saudi targets and seizing Yemen's entire Red Sea coast as they seek to stifle Saudi oil exports.