Spotlight
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Lebanon
Hezbollah confirms leader Nasrallah's death
Hezbollah on Saturday confirmed its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had been killed, after Israel said it had "eliminated" him in a strike on Beirut...
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Lebanon Israeli airstrikes pound Beirut's southern suburbs Israeli fighter jets bombarded the southern suburbs of Lebanon's capital Beirut overnight into Saturday, sending panicked families fleeing massive ...
The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday on the escalating violence in Lebanon, said Slovenia's mission to the U.N., which holds the rotating presidency of the council.
"After consulting with the delegations... the Presidency intends to schedule the briefing on the situation in Lebanon for tomorrow, Wednesday September 25 at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT)," the mission said Tuesday, adding that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would speak at the meeting.
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Caretaker foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib has voiced disappointment in President Joe Biden's remarks on the Middle East at the United Nations and expressed hope for greater U.S. diplomacy.
"It was not strong, it is not promising, and it would not solve the Lebanese problem," Bou Habib, who was attending the UN General Assembly Tuesday, told an event of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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Britain's foreign ministry said late Tuesday that it was sending military teams to Cyprus as it prepares "contingency plans" for its citizens in Lebanon as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah rages.
"Around 700 UK troops will move to Cyprus in the coming hours," the ministry said, urging British nationals to "leave Lebanon immediately".
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French President Emmanuel Macron has called on his Iranian counterpart to use his influence to reduce soaring tensions in Lebanon, the Elysee said.
Meeting President Masoud Pezeshkian, Macron "highlighted the responsibility of Iran to support a general de-escalation and use its influence with destabilizing actors," an Elysee statement said, in a clear reference to Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
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The foreign ministers of Egypt, Iraq and Jordan condemned Israel's "aggression" against Lebanon Wednesday, warning that it is "pushing the region towards all-out war".
The ministers said that stopping the "dangerous escalation under way in the region... begins by halting Israel's aggression in Gaza", in a joint statement issued after a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
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Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that Israel's killing of top Hezbollah commanders couldn't bring the Lebanese militant group to its knees.
"Some of the effective and valuable forces of Hezbollah were martyred, which undoubtedly caused damage to Hezbollah, but this was not the sort of damage that could bring the group to its knees," he said in meeting with military personnel and veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
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An Israeli airstrike hit a house in the Keserwan town of Maaysra Wednesday, killing three people and wounding nine others, the Health Ministry said.
The strikes hit the mountain village north of Beirut for the first time, while Israel said it was carrying out "extensive" strikes on Hezbollah strongholds.
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A Lebanese security source said an Israeli strike hit the Saadiyat area near Beirut early Wednesday, just hours after a deadly raid on the capital's southern suburbs.
"An Israeli strike hit Saadiyat" on the coast around 20 kilometers south of Beirut, with a "warehouse" targeted, the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
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Pope Francis on Wednesday slammed the "terrible escalation" of the conflict in Lebanon as "unacceptable", after Israeli bombings in the south of the country targeting Hezbollah killed hundreds of people.
"I am saddened by the news coming out of Lebanon... but I hope that the international community will make every effort to stop this terrible escalation. This is unacceptable, I express my closeness to the Lebanese people, who have already suffered too much in the recent past," Francis said.
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Lebanon said 51 people were killed and more than 220 injured in Israeli strikes Wednesday, including two rare strikes in mountain areas outside Hezbollah's traditional strongholds in the south and east.
An Israeli strike on the village of Joun in the Chouf mountains, southeast of Beirut, killed at least four people.
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