U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed he had recently spoken with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro amid soaring tensions between the two countries, while Caracas slammed what it called U.S. preparations for an attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks on Ukraine with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Tuesday afternoon, the Kremlin said.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky Monday arrived for Elysee talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as he sought to shore up European support for a deal to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

Visiting Pope Leo XIV urged the Lebanese people on Sunday to embrace reconciliation and remain in their crisis-hit country, while calling on its leaders to put themselves fully at the service of their citizens.

The Israeli army said on Sunday it had killed four Palestinian militants coming out of tunnels in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the corruption cases against him were tearing Israel apart, after he submitted a formal request for a pardon in the long-running trials.

Hezbollah on Saturday urged Pope Leo XIV to reject Israeli "injustice and aggression" against Lebanon, in a message to the pontiff who arrives in Beirut this weekend.

Hezbollah emerged heavily weakened from more than a year of hostilities culminating in two months of open war with Israel that began when the Iran-backed group started cross-border attacks against Israel over the Gaza war.

Deep in a rugged valley of southern Lebanon, a cave complex offers a small picture of the subterranean infrastructure Hezbollah relied on near the Israeli border, along with the difficult task the country's army faces as it seeks to disarm the group.

A new draft law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose support is crucial for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, has sparked uproar in Israel, with the opposition denouncing it as a special privilege for "draft-dodgers".

A team of Ukrainian negotiators was on Saturday headed to the United States for talks on Washington's plan to end the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.