Spotlight
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Middle East Netanyahu threatens to resume fighting in Gaza if hostages aren't released Saturday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday threatened to resume fighting in the Gaza Strip unless the Israeli hostages in Gaza are releas...
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Lebanon Govt. holds 1st session, forms policy statement panel The new government held its first session Tuesday at the Baabda Palace during which a ministerial panel was formed to draft the government’s poli...
Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat quoted Friday former Lebanese Prime Minister Saeb Salam, urging Lebanese leaders to form an inclusive government as progress stalled following a meeting Thursday between the Lebanese President, PM-designate, and Parliament speaker.
Jumblat said, in remarks published Friday in al-Joumhouria, that it is time to remember Salam's words "There are no winners and no losers" in order to succeed in managing Lebanon's complicated situation and national junctures, including the new government formation.

A number of Hezbollah supporters started gathering Friday outside Beirut’s airport for a sit-in protesting the anti-Hezbollah remarks that U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus voiced from Baabda after her meeting with President Joseph Aoun.
“The Lebanese Army has reinforced its deployment outside the airport,” the National News Agency said.

President Joseph Aoun on Friday told the visiting Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus that “permanent stability in the South hinges on completing Israel’s withdrawal from the territory that it occupied during the last war, and the implementation of Resolution 1701 with all its terms, including the requirements of the Nov. 27 agreement.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Friday said the FPM cannot be in a new government that contains “privileged and non-privileged members.”

A Hezbollah member and his two daughters were killed Friday in an explosion of a house in the southern border town of Tayr Harfa, media reports said.
The man, called Abbas Haidar, is a Hezbollah official, LBCI said, adding that his two daughters who were with him were also killed and other members of his family were injured.

MP Ghayath Yazbek of the Lebanese Forces on Thursday said that “Speaker Nabih Berri has demonstrated an advanced and alarming image about the (Shiite) Duo’s future performance in Cabinet.”

The toppling of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, who had strong ties to Iran and Hezbollah, has crippled Hezbollah's ability to bounce back by cutting off a vital weapons-smuggling route through Syria.
Syria's new president and Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister met last month in Damascus and discussed the relations between the two countries. In the meeting, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa vowed that Syria will no longer allow the smuggling of weapons and money to Hezbollah, a local media report said.

President Joseph Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and PM-designate Nawaf Salam met Thursday in Baabda for around two hours without managing to resolve "a dispute over the fifth Shiite minister" in the new government, media reports said.
TV networks had expected the government to be formed due to Berri's presence at the palace and the summoning of Council of Ministers Secretary-General Mahmoud Makiyyeh, who was supposed to recite the cabinet formation decrees.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Iran "cannot have a Nuclear Weapon", a day after he signed an order reinstating a "maximum pressure" policy against Tehran over allegations that it was trying to develop such weapons.
"I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon," he said in a post on his Truth Social platform, adding: "I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gifted U.S. President Donald Trump a golden pager and a regular one, a reference to the clandestine operation against Hezbollah last year.
