Spotlight
Two Lebanese shepherds who were caught in crossfire during clashes on the Lebanon-Israel border were found dead Thursday, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force on the border said.
The Lebanese army had called UNIFIL in to help evacuate the two men Wednesday evening after they were reported injured but had to call off the search “due to the darkness and presence of land mines in the area,” UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said. He said Thursday morning that the men’s bodies had been found.

Hezbollah targeted Wednesday the al-Malkiyeh and al-Bayyad Israeli posts opposite to the Lebanese towns of Aitaroun and Blida.
Israeli artillery shelled in response the outskirts of the towns of Blida, Meis al-Jabal and Aitaroun with phosphorus and fragmentation bombs.

After visiting Qatar, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will continue a tour of other Arab countries, as he works to ensure Lebanon does not enter the Hamas-Israel war.
Mikati said Wednesday that time is of the essence in stopping the Hamas-Israel war from “going out of control” and affecting Lebanon and the wider region.

Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, the head of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, arrived in Beirut on Tuesday on a visit that is not his first since the eruption of the Gaza war, Lebanon’s Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The U.S. State Department has called on Lebanon to elect a president who can “guide Lebanon safely through the current challenges.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has commented on the draft law submitted by the Lebanese Forces bloc with the aim of extending the term of Army chief General Joseph Aoun.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has said that the U.S. is monitoring the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border “very, very closely.”

Hezbollah announced overnight that it has carried out 105 attacks against Israeli posts on Lebanon’s border since October 8.
The attacks killed and wounded 120 soldiers and destroyed nine tanks, two personnel carriers and two Humvees, Hezbollah said in an infographic.

Lebanese emergency crews rush to the scene of Israeli bombardments in aging vehicles and without protective gear as the crisis-hit country struggles to prepare for a possible war.
A grueling, four-year-long economic collapse, widely blamed on the governing elite, has left Lebanon ill-prepared for another disaster, and volunteers and local authorities are scrambling to fill the gap with limited means.

The human rights group Amnesty International has said that civilians in southern Lebanon were injured this month when Israeli forces hit a border village with shells containing white phosphorus, a controversial incendiary munition.
The organization said it verified three other instances of Israel's military dropping white phosphorus on Lebanese border areas in the past month, but Amnesty said it did not document any harm to civilians in those cases.
