The Israeli advance came as the U.S. military hosted Israeli and Lebanese defence representatives in Washington to pursue a U.S.-brokered plan to forge peace between the two countries.
Tag: Middle East
Hamas said on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that his country would expand its area of control in Gaza was a dangerous escalation, as European states and residents of the Palestinian territory also voiced alarm at the plan.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would make a final decision on Friday over a deal with Iran to extend their ceasefire that would need to include opening the Strait of Hormuz and dismantling Tehran’s capacity to make a nuclear weapon.
Eleven children have been killed or injured on average every 24 hours in Lebanon over the last week, the U.N.’s children’s agency said on Friday, as Israel has expanded strikes across the country despite a ceasefire.
The president’s dilemma became clear during a week of hectic diplomacy.
An Israeli strike hit a building in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital on Thursday, the first strike to hit near Beirut in weeks amid a ceasefire that has failed to halt fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had directed Israel’s military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70% of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast.
The United States and Iran have reached an outline agreement to extend their ceasefire pending the approval of President Donald Trump, according to an Axios report, after Iran targeted a U.S. air base in Kuwait on Thursday in the wake of U.S. strikes on what Washington described as an Iranian drone operation.
A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Rae Wee
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday negotiating a deal with Iran could “take a few days,” quashing hopes for an imminent end to the conflict a day after U.S. forces conducted what Washington called defensive strikes in southern Iran.