The Progressive Socialist Party kicked off this week a series of meetings with the Lebanese political parties in a bid to break a knotty presidential impasse, few days after French special envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, left Beirut empty-handed.

In Maarab, a PSP delegation met with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and MPs Ghassan Hasbani and Nazih Matta, while Former minister Ghazi Aridi held meetings with Speaker Nabih Berri and Hussein Khalil, the political aide of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah fired Thursday for the first time air defense missiles at Israeli warplanes that the group said were "breaking the sound barrier and terrorizing children."

Hezbollah said in a statement that its air defense missiles forced the warplanes to "retreat beyond the border."

The image shows tents in a camp, highlighted to spell out one single phrase: "All Eyes on Rafah." It has been shared more than 50 million times.

A single image, not even an authentic photograph, is the focus of a singular campaign on Instagram that has caught the attention of the algorithm and captured the imaginations of users across national borders — a show of support for the Palestinian movement as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its eighth month.

An Israeli army raid in April set off a near three-day gunbattle with Palestinian militants. By the time it was over, homes had been blasted to rubble and many residents had fled.

The raid wasn't in Gaza, where Israel is at war with Hamas, but more than 100 kilometers away in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank — a territory that has been under Israeli military rule for over a half-century.

Throughout its grinding seven-month war with Hamas, Israel has pledged to investigate a series of deadly events in which its military forces are suspected of wrongdoing. The commitment comes in the face of mounting claims — from human rights groups and the International Criminal Court 's chief prosecutor — that the country's leaders are committing war crimes in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

In one of the highest-profile cases, an attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed six foreign aid workers and their Palestinian driver, the Israeli army promptly published its findings, acknowledged misconduct by its forces and dismissed two soldiers. But other investigations remain open, and admissions of guilt are rare.

Defense experts who have reviewed debris images from an Israeli airstrike that ignited a deadly fire in a camp for displaced Palestinians questioned why Israel did not use smaller, more precise weapons when so many civilians were nearby. They said the bombs used were likely U.S.-made.

The strikes, targeting Hamas operatives, killed as many as 45 people sheltering in a temporary displacement camp near the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday and have drawn international condemnation.

A ruling by the top United Nations court ordering Israel to halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has deepened its disconnect with the United States over an operation that faces mounting international condemnation but that American officials describe, at least for now, as limited and targeted.

The decision Friday by the International Court of Justice in The Hague adds to the pressure facing an increasingly isolated Israel, coming just days after Norway, Ireland and Spain said they would recognize a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor of a separate international court sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as leaders of Hamas.

A momentary shriek presages a bone-juddering blast, followed by a plume of thick black smoke. Refrigerator-sized holes mark where Hezbollah anti-tank missiles like this one have hit along Israel's northern border.

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attack triggered war in Gaza.

For weeks, refugee Maryam Janhat has been living in fear of deportation as Lebanon cracks down on Syrians, with politicians ramping up calls for them to be forced home.

Refugees from Lebanon's war-torn neighbor face a dilemma: should they stay and contend with stricter measures and growing anti-Syrian sentiment, or should they return home and risk poverty and repression?

The world cannot look to U.N. peacekeepers as a way of stopping wars, whether in Gaza or other active conflict zones, the department chief told AFP, citing the famous Blue Helmets' inherent limitations.

A mission in the occupied Palestinian territories, for example, is only "very, very, very hypothetical," Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said.