President Joseph Aoun defended on Thursday negotiations with Israel, saying they were not a betrayal and he would not surrender "a single inch of Lebanon's territory," according to the presidency.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the Israeli army would remain "until further notice" in what it describes as "security zones" in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told Lebanon's president on Thursday that Damascus had no intention of intervening militarily in his country, despite U.S. pressure to do so, according to the Lebanese presidency.

Shaibani, who also invited President Joseph Aoun to Syria, is visiting Beirut, where he met parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, for the first time.

Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf called on Thursday for massive turnout at Ali Khamenei's funeral to avenge the supreme leader's death in U.S.-Israeli strikes at the start of the war.

"I invite all the Iranian people... to write a glorious page in the history of Islamic Iran through your presence" at the funeral ceremonies starting Saturday, Ghalibaf said in a statement, adding: "The nation's call for vengeance must ring in the ears of the whole world."

An organization has begun restoring Damascus' main Jewish cemetery, the group's founder told AFP on Tuesday, as members of Syria's dwindling community seek to revive their heritage after ex-ruler Bashar al-Assad's ouster.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended earning around $1.2 billion from his family's cryptocurrency activities last year, saying "everybody's profiting" from his time in power.

"You know why I'm profiting, because the stock market's going up, everybody's profiting," Trump told reporters as he prepared to take his first flight on a new Air Force One plane gifted by Qatar.

The Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during their attack on El-Fasher city between 2024 and 2025, Amnesty International alleged Wednesday.

Iranian state television on Tuesday cut short the broadcast of an interview with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's top negotiator in talks with the United States, drawing criticism from his team.

"This discussion was delivered to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) more than 2 hours before the broadcast time; but unfortunately, the broadcast of this discussion was stopped in the middle of it," said a statement by the parliament media center on Wednesday.

Israel's former army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot on Tuesday announced the start of his electoral campaign as he bids to take over the seat of prime minister from veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

The United States on Wednesday signed an agreement to build a new embassy compound in Jerusalem, in a move that Israel said reflected the "unbreakable alliance" between the countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the progress on Wednesday of indirect talks between Iran and the United States, saying there had been "very good meetings" in Doha.

"As far as things are going, the denuclearization of Iran is moving along well. They've had very good meetings, and we'll see," Trump told reporters as he prepared to board his new Qatar-gifted Air Force One plane for a trip to North Dakota.