Escalating clashes between Israel and Hezbollah threatened to overshadow US President Joe Biden's final appearance at the UN's signature annual event on Tuesday as diplomats scrambled to avert an all-out regional war.

US President Joe Biden's top priorities for the past 11 months has been to prevent the Gaza war from spiraling into an all-out regional conflict. With the unstoppable Netanyahu, the haughty has beaten the mighty - black and blue.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused Israel of seeking regional war, as he attempted to cast Tehran as restrained and appealed to the West, including the United States, for talks on flashpoint issues.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the death toll in Israeli strikes Monday rose to 492, including 35 children, the bloodiest daily toll in nearly a year of cross-border clashes.

Lebanon's health ministry said more than 700 were injured on Monday in the worst toll by far in nearly a year of cross-border clashes with Israel, while Iran warned Israel of "dangerous consequences". The United Nations has also expressed concerns about Israeli escalation against Lebanon.

Egypt's foreign minister Sunday warned of the risk of an all-out regional war in light of intensified fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, saying the escalation "negatively impacted" a Gaza truce deal. Meanwhile, the world powers on Sunday implored Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement to refrain from escalating their...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt serious blows to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, as rapidly escalating cross-border exchanges raised fears of an all-out war. Netanyahu's remarks follow a night of intense rocket fire at northern Israel that had sent hundreds of thousands of people to...

Israel said it struck hundreds of targets in Lebanon, hours after Hezbollah's leader vowed to retaliate for two "unprecedented" rounds of attacks targeting its operatives' communication devices.Israel has not commented on the explosion of thousands of Hezbollah pagers and radios, which killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 over two...

Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon in unprecedented attacks this week, killing 37 people and wounding more than 2,900. The blasts spanning two days have dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed resistance group

A second wave of device explosions killed 20 people and wounded more than 450 in Lebanon on Wednesday, officials said, stoking fears of an all-out war in the region. On Tuesday, pager explosions killed 12 and injured more than 2,800 people in Lebanon blamed on Israel.

Lebanon's health minister said nine people were killed and some 2,800 wounded Tuesday when pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across the country. The blasts "killed nine people, including a girl", minister Firass Abiad said in a casualty update.

Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, "a field commander" in the group's elite Radwan Force, "was targeted in an Israeli strike on a motorcycle in the Bekaa" Valley in Lebanon's east, far from the Israeli border

With tensions soaring in the Middle East, the United States says that Iran along with its proxies might attack Israel as early as this week. The world leaders are trying to persuade Iran and Israel to avoid war, but Iran says it has a right to defend itself just like...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his counterparts from the G7 nations that any attack could happen within 24 to 48 hours, as early as Monday

Several airlines including Lufthansa and Air France have delayed or suspended flights to Lebanon, and countries have issued urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave in recent days. France did so Sunday, warning of "a highly volatile" situation, while the US embassy in Lebanon a day earlier urged its citizens...

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, addressing the funeral of the Lebanese group's top military commander, said Israel and "those who are behind it must await our inevitable response" to Fuad Shukr's and Haniyeh's killings within hours of each other. "You do not know what red lines you crossed," Nasrallah said, addressing...

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was a "cowardly act" and urged Palestinians to remain united against Israel."President Mahmud Abbas of the State of Palestine strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious escalation,"...

Israel's security cabinet on Sunday authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to decide on the "manner and timing" of a response to a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 teenagers and children, and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Hezbollah...

Since October, the cross-border violence has killed 511 people in Lebanon.

Fire and smoke billows after rockets fired from southern Lebanon hit areas in northern Israel on July 4, 2024. (AFP).

The flare-up in the northern Gaza Strip's Shujaiya district, which witnesses and medics said caused numerous casualties, comes as fears grow of a wider regional conflagration involving Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

Top Israeli officials have suggested they are open to a diplomatic resolution of the border tensions, though Gallant said Israel should be ready for "every possible scenario".

Lebanon's transport minister denied on Sunday that Hezbollah was storing weapons at Beirut airport, as fears grow of all-out war between the militant group and Israel.Ali Hamieh called a press conference to deny the allegations of "absurd articles" in the media, and attacked the British daily The Telegraph.The newspaper said...

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's group and Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily fire since Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered the Gaza war

Beirut, Lebanon -- Hezbollah said it fired a new wave of rockets and drones at the Israeli army on Thursday, after an Israeli strike killed one of its senior commanders.It was Hezbollah's largest simultaneous attack in near-daily cross-border fire between it and the Israeli army since its ally Hamas's October 7...

Jerusalem, Undefined -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was "prepared for a very intense operation" along the border with Lebanon, where Israeli troops have exchanged near-daily fire with Hezbollah fighters.Almost eight months of exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified over the past week, with Israel striking...

Lebanese state media said an Israeli strike on a car in the country's south killed two people Tuesday, with a source close to Iran-backed Hezbollah saying a field commander was among the dead.Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire following the Palestinian group's October 7 attack on southern...

The Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that "four Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli drone strike on their vehicle" in south Lebanon's Bafliyeh village, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the frontier. Lebanon's civil defense reported "four martyrs"...

It was the first time Hezbollah claimed such an attack in six months of near-daily cross-border clashes between the Iran-backed group and Israel since the Gaza war broke out.

Nasrallah said the killing of civilians was aimed at "putting pressure" on Hizbollah to stop attacks on Israel, but stressed that the group will intensify its cross-border fire. "The response to the massacre must be to pursue the resistance (against Israel)" and Hizbollah will not just strike "(military) positions... and...

The targets included a site operated by Lebanese group Hezbollah on a road leading to the Sayyida Zeinab district and a site on the road to Damascus airport that had recently been vacated by pro-Iran groups, the Britain-based war monitor said.

Israel's relentless military offensive has since killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. The Gaza war has forced more than one million Palestinians to flee to the far-southern Rafah area near the Egyptian border, according to the UN,...

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah, an ally of Gaza-based Hamas. On Monday, HIzbollah announced that two of its fighters had been killed "on the road...

At least 24,448 Palestinians, more than 70 percent of them women, young children and adolescents, have been killed in Israeli bombardments and ground assaults, according to the Gaza health ministry's latest figures. "When we talk about rebuilding Gaza, it's not anymore like before, where we had to rehabilitate some shelter and...

The European Union foreign policy chief warned against a regional conflict that would involve Lebanon, as border clashes intensified nearly three months into Israel's war with Hizbollah ally Hamas. “It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict," Josep Borrell said during a press conference in...

Beirut, Lebanon - Lebanon's Hizbollah fired on Saturday over 60 rockets at an Israeli military base, the group said, describing the barrage as a response to the killing of Hamas's deputy leader in Beirut."As part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Aruri... the...

More than 80 percent of the displaced Lebanese are staying with relatives, according to the report, and only 2 percent housed in 14 collective shelters spread across the south of the country, mainly in the coastal city of Tyre and in the Hasbaya region. The rest have rented apartments or...

A high-level security official told AFP that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in the strike by Israel. A second security official confirmed the information, adding two floors of the targeted building and one car were damaged. Lebanese media said a total of six people were killed in...

Lebanon-Israel border has witnessed increasing hostilities amid the Israel-Hamas conflict since October 7, escalating exchanges involve the Israeli army and Hamas ally Hezbollah. Since hostilities began, more than 150 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah combatants but also more than a dozen civilians, three...

"It runs counter to the pursuit of enduring mutual interests in establishing security and stability, and it opposes the declared intention of the American side to enhance relations with Iraq," Baghdad said.

Lebanon is ready to implement a UN resolution that would help end Hizbollah's cross-border attacks on Israel if Israel also complies and withdraws from disputed territory, Lebanon's prime minister said. The frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and the Iran-backed...

The impact of the conflict had reversed a slight recovery for Lebanon, which has battled a deep economic crisis for years, the Washington-based bank said in a report. "Prior to October 2023, economic growth was projected -- for the first time since 2018 -- to slightly expand in 2023," by...

Beirut, Lebanon - Lebanon's compounding crises are having a "devastating" impact on children and their education, a United Nations agency said Wednesday, warning of additional pressure as the Israel-Hamas war spills over into the country.UN children's agency UNICEF said more than a quarter of households surveyed last month reported children not...

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported "the deaths of three citizens -- two journalists and another civilian -- in enemy bombing" of the Tair Harfa area

Israel has targeted Syria several times in the past weeks as regional tensions simmer over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. While Israel rarely comments on the strikes it carries out in Syria, it has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to extend its footprint there.

President Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran sees it as "its duty to support the resistance groups" but insisted that they act independently.

"We stress the need for urgent action to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza... we support humanitarian pauses and corridors to facilitate urgently needed assistance, civilian movement, and the release of hostages," the ministers said in a joint statement after talks in Japan.

Beirut, Lebanon - Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein on Tuesday urged for calm to return to Lebanon's southern border with Israel, after weeks of skirmishes following the start of the Israel-Hamas war."The United States does not want to see conflict in Gaza escalating and expanding into Lebanon," Hochstein told a press...

A latest report by IIF highlights three possible outcomes from Gaza operations, each with profound implications for MENA economies and political stability.

Jerusalem - The Israeli military said on Saturday it had struck "two cells" and a Hizbollah post in response to attempted firing from Lebanon as cross-border shelling continued while Israel fights Hamas in Gaza.The latest skirmishes came a day after Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that the war between Israel...