Saudi Arabia has evacuated the families of diplomatic staff because of ongoing clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops.

The Saudi move comes amid rising tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border, where Hezbollah members have been exchanging fire with Israeli troops daily for two weeks.

Tensions from the war in Gaza could help accelerate the move away from planet-warming fossil fuels like oil and gas and toward renewable energy, electric cars and heat pumps — similar to how sharp increases in the price of oil during the 1970s unleashed efforts to conserve fuel, the head of the International Energy Agency said.

"Today we are again facing a crisis in the Middle East that could once again shock oil markets," said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. That comes on top of the stress on energy markets from Russia's cutoff of natural gas to Europe over its invasion of Ukraine, he said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed on Tuesday that recent Ukrainian attacks have denied the Russian fleet safe bases and secure maritime corridors in the western part of the Black Sea, as Kyiv's troops look to squeeze the Kremlin's occupying forces out of the Crimean Peninsula.

Crimea provides rear support for Moscow's battlefield efforts further west and has been a frequent target for Ukrainian forces during the war since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

China's top diplomat will come to the United States on Thursday for a three-day visit, the latest move by Washington and Beijing to keep high-level talks open amid tense bilateral relations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan over a range of issues, including the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Ukraine war and a recent vessel collision in the South China Sea, according to senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the trip.

On Day 20 without a House speaker, Republicans found themselves starting over Monday — bumbling ahead with few ideas about who will lead, what they are fighting over and when they will get Congress working again.

Republicans gathered late in the evening to hear quick speeches from the congressmen seeking the job, though none has a clear shot at the gavel. Eight candidates are in the running for one speaker after one dropped out. Behind closed doors, they made their elevator pitches to colleagues ahead of internal party voting.

The gas-rich nation of Qatar has become a key intermediary over the fate of some 200 hostages held by Hamas militants after their unprecedented attack on Israel, once again putting the small Arabian Peninsula country in the spotlight.

The negotiations have also thrust Qatar into a delicate international balancing act as it maintains a relationship with those viewed as militant groups by the West while trying to preserve its close security ties with the United States.

Forty years after one of the deadliest attacks against U.S. troops in the Middle East, some warn that Washington could be sliding toward a new conflict in the region.

On Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide bomber hit an American military barracks at Beirut International Airport, killing 241 U.S. service members, most of them Marines – still the deadliest attack on Marines since the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. A near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers.

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking after meeting Israel's prime minister on Tuesday, proposed a coalition to fight terror groups in the region “that threaten all of us.”

He compared the proposal to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. He was referring to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran itself and the Houtis in Yemen, among others, saying they must not take the risk of opening a new front.

The Pentagon has sent military advisers, including a Marine Corps general versed in urban warfare, to Israel to aid in its war planning and is speeding multiple sophisticated air defense systems to the Middle East days ahead of an anticipated ground assault into Gaza.

One of the officers leading the assistance is Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Glynn, who previously helped lead special operations forces against the Islamic State and served in Fallujah, Iraq, during some of the most heated urban combat there, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss Glynn's role and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Israel escalated its bombardment of targets in the Gaza Strip, the military said Tuesday, ahead of an expected ground invasion against Hamas militants that the U.S. fears could spark a wider conflict in the region, including attacks on American troops.

The stepped-up attacks, and the rapidly rising death toll in Gaza, came as Hamas released two elderly Israeli women who were among the hundreds of hostages it captured during its devastating Oct. 7 attack on towns in southern Israel.