Hezbollah

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 21 (UPI) — The World Bank said Friday that the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict has severely disrupted Lebanon’s fragile recovery, predicting a 6.4% contraction in the crisis-ridden economy this year and a rise in inflation to 17.5%.

The international financial institution said in a report that Lebanon entered 2026 “on firmer footing,” after an estimated 4.2% expansion in real gross domestic product in 2025.

It was the country’s fastest growth since the onset of the 2019 financial crisis, driven by stronger consumption, investment and tourism, as well as improved high-frequency indicators, according to the report.

It noted that the rebound was sharply interrupted by the military escalation between Hezbollah and Israel on March 2, causing further damage to housing and infrastructure, displacing some 1.2 million people, disrupting supply chains, and severely affecting tourism and domestic demand.

Dahlia Khalifa, World Bank Middle East director, said Lebanon’s recovery has been “sharply set back by the renewed conflict,” adding to an already severe social and economic crisis.

The report projects that Lebanon’s economy will contract by 6.4% in 2026, while inflation is expected to rise to 17.5%, driven by supply disruptions, higher shipping costs and rising oil prices, further eroding purchasing power.

According to the latest casualty count released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, some 4,348 people have been killed and 12,703 others injured since March 2. Israel’s intensive military campaign has caused massive destruction to property and infrastructure, with some 70 border villages in southern Lebanon reduced to rubble and rendered uninhabitable.

Lebanese Finance Minister Yassine Jaber has estimated that the combined direct and indirect losses resulting from the conflict in Lebanon since 2023, including the 2024 and 2026 escalations, could reach $20 billion.

Lebanon was still struggling to recover from a protracted financial crisis — described by the World Bank as a “deliberate depression” and the worst globally since 1850 that limited access to bank deposits, caused prices to soar, unemployment to soar and public services to deteriorate.

Moreover, the population faced eroded purchasing power after the Lebanese pound lost more than 95% of its value against the U.S. dollar,

The World Bank report said the government recorded an overall surplus of 3.9% of GDP in 2025. However, rising humanitarian and reconstruction needs after the recent war, pressure to increase public sector wages and slower revenue growth are expected to place additional strain on public finances in the second half of this year.

The report noted that continued progress on reforms remains essential to restoring confidence, reviving growth and supporting a durable economic recovery.

“Advancing reforms — particularly on banking sector restructuring and fiscal management –will be critical to restoring confidence, protecting stability and mobilizing the financing needed for reconstruction and recovery,” the World Bank’s Khalifa said.

The report noted that the banking sector remains deeply weakened despite some progress in advancing its restructuring agenda and warned that the exchange rate could come under pressure “if foreign inflows decline or conflict-related shocks persist.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Washington will impose its ‘toughest sanctions in history’ to ‘collapse’ Iran’s government, warning of consequences for countries that maintain economic ties with Tehran.

Canada official condemns Israel’s ‘invasion’ of Lebanon, calls for sovereignty as aid pledged to the crisis-hit nation.

Canada’s secretary of state for international development, Randeep Sarai, visited Lebanon to announce new humanitarian aid, condemning what he called Israel’s “unlawful invasion” of Lebanon.

During his visit, Sarai stated that Beirut should govern its own space. He also announced new programmes Canada is launching to support Lebanese families affected by the conflict, raising its total assistance to Lebanon this year to more than $50m.

“Our commitment is long-term, and we’re there for Lebanon,” said Sarai, who visited shelters housing people displaced by the war and Syrian refugees during his visit.

Amid the escalation between Israel and Lebanon in March, Canada warned on March 25 that Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity “must not be violated” and strongly condemned plans by Israeli forces to occupy southern Lebanon.

As part of the US-mediated framework agreement signed in late June, “pilot zones” were designed to return small areas in southern Lebanon from Israeli forces to the Lebanese army.

In late July, the Lebanese Armed Forces accused Israel of obstructing its efforts to take over control of security in southern Lebanon.

The war has killed more than 4,000 people and has caused widespread destruction across Lebanon. The United Nations says that about 360,000 people are displaced as a result of the latest conflict.

Home to a large Lebanese diaspora, Canada has given Lebanon about $575m in assistance in the past 10 years, Sarai said.

Sarai also met Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who promised to reinstate state authority across Lebanon and to implement reforms to fight corruption.

Israeli officials said they will not pull out of Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed.

US president says Iran should ‘put up the white flag of surrender’ as the two nations’ MoU expired on Monday.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 14 (UPI) — Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem lashed out at the Lebanese officials Friday for accepting the June 26 U.S.-brokered framework agreement with Israel and failing to secure any gains after seven rounds of negotiations.

He called for an end to “the humiliation” and urging the officials to reverse “the sinful mistake.”

Qassem said in a speech broadcast by Hezbollah-run Al Manar TV that the initial agreement, a conditional and phased process aimed at ending the state of war, amounted to “Israeli dictates” that gave Israel “everything it wants,” while the Lebanese authorities relinquished their sovereignty.

He called for “reversing the sinful, disgraceful and humiliating mistake,” which raises question marks about “what these officials are doing.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun decided to engage in direct talks with Israel in what he believed was the only viable path to ending the war, despite Hezbollah’s staunch opposition. Aoun was betting that U.S. President Donald Trump alone could pressure Israel to withdraw its troops and help Lebanon restore its sovereignty.

The war broke out when Hezbollah opened a support front for Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, and resumed fighting in solidarity with Iran on March 2 this year, triggering a massive Israeli retaliation that significantly degraded the Iran-backed group and caused widespread destruction in southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.

Israel, which reduced some 70 border villages in southern Lebanon to rubble and rendered them uninhabitable while occupying a 6-mile “buffer zone,” insists that it will not withdraw its troops unless Hezbollah is completely disarmed.

The framework agreement, reached by Lebanese and Israeli negotiating teams under pressure from Washington, provides for a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied parts of southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese Army to “restore effective sovereign authority,” beginning with its deployment in two initial pilot zones.

The initial accord also addressed plans to disarm Hezbollah, Iran’s main proxy and once its most powerful regional non-state armed actor.

Despite the Lebanese Army’s deployment in the village of Zawtar al-Gharbieh — the first pilot zone in southern Lebanon — Israel continued to carry out strikes, destroy homes and demolish Hezbollah tunnels and military infrastructure.

Qassem pointed out that Israel would not have carried out “all this aggression and genocide without the Americans.”

Addressing Lebanese officials, he asked them to “name a single achievement from the seven rounds of negotiations. Israel got everything it wanted and everything it sought.”

He accused the officials of failing to withdraw from the negotiations with Israel, saying that what is happening “amounts to surrender, which we do not accept.”

Qassem credited Iran for progress, saying that the Iran-U.S. negotiations in Islamabad brought about the return of displaced people to southern Lebanon and a cease-fire that reduced the escalation, rather than the direct negotiations.

He said the war was “an existential war of aggression,” and that his group would “stand firm and defeat the Israeli project” and that those betting on surrender were “betting on a mirage.”

US president’s words come as Treasury chief says US will use economic measures against Iran that have ‘never been seen’.

President Trump again insists the US has ‘total control’ of the strait, while Tehran is resolute that Washington must meet its demands.

Qatar says negotiations between Oman and Iran over the future of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz are making major progress.

US President Donald Trump expects the conflict with Iran to end “pretty soon”, while Tehran reports that an agreement with Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is “on the verge of being finalised” following a route agreement between both nations.

Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Lebanon – Every year on August 4 since 2020, families of the victims of a massive explosion at Beirut port gather outside the site of what was one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in modern history.

They continue to press Lebanese authorities for justice and accountability for the explosion of ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored with highly inflammable materials.

Yet there has been none, despite a change in leadership that promised to support an independent judiciary into the blast that killed more than 200 people.

This year I couldn’t attend the commemorations because I was covering another tragedy – only the latest to devastate Lebanon.

I was in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, a small town in southern Lebanon that lies in ruins after weeks of Israeli air attacks, shelling and at times deliberate demolitions of people’s homes amid fighting with the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Residents are trying to start again – but they can’t.

Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting since October 2023, with different levels of intensity, but the former has twice escalated the conflict – first in September 2024 and then in early March this year, after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.

People in Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh had not recovered from the first escalation before they found themselves escaping bombing and displaced yet again.

The majority of houses in the town are so badly damaged they are uninhabitable.

I watched a man in his 80s cry as he showed me the mountain of concrete that used to be his home. “I feel humiliated,” he said. “I have no choice but to collect the scrap metal from my destroyed home to sell in order to be able to survive.”

In 2019, Lebanon’s economy, local currency and the banking sector all but collapsed, leaving people unable to access their savings. And little if anything has been done by the political class to carry out required financial reforms to bring in much-needed international funds.

The reconstruction bill for the latest escalation is in the billions of dollars. Officials do not have an exact figure but say it could climb to $20bn.

It might be a conservative estimate. I have been visiting villages across southern Lebanon since the reduction in violence a few weeks ago. The devastation is unprecedented. Basic services are no longer available. In some areas, there are no telecommunication networks.

And then there are the dozens of villages that we cannot access because they are occupied by the Israeli military.

There, homes continue to be demolished, water facilities destroyed, and agricultural land and olive groves torched. The deliberate destruction continues regardless of what is supposed to be a ceasefire, a framework agreement with Lebanon and condemnations by Lebanese officials who took the controversial and divisive decision to engage in direct talks with Israel.

Reconstruction as a card

When hostilities escalated in March this year, reconstruction from the previous round of fighting in 2024 had not even begun. Then, the World Bank estimated losses at $11bn – money the nearly bankrupt Lebanese government did not have.

Then, like now, there was no offer to help by international donors. Reconstruction aid was and continues to be used as leverage to force the disarmament of Hezbollah.

It was not just the lack of funds.

During the 15 months following a November 2024 ceasefire and the latest escalation, the Israeli military maintained pressure by systematically targeting all recovery and rebuilding efforts in southern Lebanon.

They bombed heavy machinery and construction equipment, destroyed factories and prefabricated house units, and attacked workers clearing rubble to prevent displaced residents from returning. Nearly 100,000 people were already displaced before this year’s war that forced more than a million people from their homes.

More destruction

On the sixth anniversary of the port blast, Lebanon has had to face more destruction.

I remember writing the same words last year, on the fifth anniversary. Like in 2025, this year’s destruction came from outside the country – from Israel. Areas where Hezbollah has influence remain covered in rubble following Israel’s attacks.

Yet again, there is a need to rebuild. Yet again, many Lebanese have to pick up the pieces of their lives on their own.

While they try, they live in fear. In the front-line town of al-Mansouri, we met the head of the municipality, Haidar Mudayhi, who told us not to approach the hills around the town’s centre.

“The Israelis drop stun grenades every time someone tries to reach those areas … every day there is machinegun fire around the village … the other day there were air strikes in the hills … there is no stability,” he said.

It is a story we hear time and time again in villages north of the occupation zone.

The relative calm is fragile. No agreement exists that guarantees Israel and Hezbollah will not go to war again.

Israel acts as if there is no ceasefire, while the signed agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which the United States has called “historic”, does not include a commitment or a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Israeli forces struck near Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon. The military said it used 700 tonnes of explosives to destroy parts of a Hezbollah tunnel network. Israel agreed in June to a phased withdrawal from Lebanon, and have the Lebanese military handle disarming Hezbollah.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 30 (UPI) — The widespread destruction left behind by Israeli forces in Zawtar al-Gharbieh — the first U.S.-backed “pilot zone” in southern Lebanon — was beyond anything its returning displaced residents could have imagined, providing a glimpse of the devastation across the southern region and the extensive reconstruction needs ahead.

Situated in the central sector of southern Lebanon near the strategic Litani River, Zawtar al-Gharbieh represents the testing ground for the success of the pilot zones — the cornerstone of the U.S.-brokered framework agreement reached between Lebanon and Israel on June 26.

It was the first village designated by Israel to begin withdrawing its troops, allowing for the deployment of the Lebanese Army and return of displaced residents. Yet, it reveals the significant and complex challenges facing the process.

The residents rushed back to the village when the Lebanese Army moved in July 21, returning each morning and waiting at the entrance for five days before they were finally allowed to enter and inspect their homes and properties.

The army was carrying out security inspections of all homes and removing missiles and unexploded ordnance remaining from the Israeli military presence.

“We were shocked by the scale of the destruction. It was much, much more than we had expected,” Mayor Abed Ezzedine told UPI.

Ezzedine said Israeli forces “spared nothing,” destroying or damaging everything in their path — from homes and schools to places of worship, shops and the municipality building.

He said the water infrastructure was torn up, the electricity networks blown up and burned, and the village’s only water well destroyed.

“In this life, everything has limits. Even war should have limits,” he added. “They changed the face of the village beyond recognition.”

Some 250 housing units — representing up to 80% of the village’s homes — have been destroyed, while the remaining houses have suffered severe damage and are no longer habitable.

Several of Zawtar al-Gharbieh’s 4,500 to 5,000 residents were killed, including entire families, while others were injured as they fled Israeli attacks and advancing troops three months ago, according to Ezzedine, who said “they showed no mercy to anyone.”

Although Israel stopped targeting the village after the Lebanese Army deployment, he said its drones never left the sky, hoovering at very low altitude “over our heads.”

“What kind of cease-fire or arrangement this is?” Ezzedine asked rhetoically.

Very few residents were able to stay — those who were fortunate enough to still have one room in their homes standing and safe. However, they lacked the basic necessities to continue living, including water, electricity and even Internet access.

The vast majority, meanwhile, spent their days in the village and returned at night to their shelters.

Ezzedine struggled to locate his home among the rubble — one of 25 houses in his neighborhood that had been reduced to ruins.

The rapid reconstruction of Zawtar al-Gharbieh will be a key factor in determining the success of the pilot zones, easing residents’ suffering, restoring confidence in the Lebanese state and reducing the likelihood of them turning again to Hezbollah.

“We want to see action on the ground. This is a test of good faith,” Ezzedine said.

According to a Lebanese official source, the main obstacle is the lack of necessary funding.

The source emphasized that rebuilding the village is an important step in supporting Lebanon’s diplomatic approach and consolidating the success of the pilot zones.

He told UPI that the government faces two options: organizing a reconstruction conference for southern Lebanon, which would require considerable time, or quickly rallying support from friendly states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar to rebuild the first pilot village.

However, success also largely depends on Israel, which has insisted that it will not withdraw from parts of southern Lebanon it is occupying — specifically its self-declared “yellow zone” — or from Gaza and Syria.

Lebanese and Israeli negotiating teams are scheduled to meet Aug. 4 to 5 to evaluate progress on the pilot zones, the U.S.-led verification mechanism and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from additional occupied Lebanese territories.

The official source told UPI that the United States, which does not want to have boots on the ground in southern Lebanon, would have to “find an acceptable formula for all parties” for the verification process, potentially involving countries such as Italy, France or Spain — proposals reportedly rejected by Israel — or others to carry out the mission.

The source confirmed Lebanon’s commitment to the framework deal, saying, “We will not back out of it,” despite knowing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not prepared to withdraw from southern Lebanon at this stage, ahead of the October 17 Israeli elections.

Netanyahu remained firm that the disarmament of Hezbollah is a precondition for Israel’s complete withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

A well-informed source expects “tough negotiations” at next week’s Rome talks over the establishment of additional pilot zones, as Israel continues “its aggressions, infiltrations and systematic house demolitions” in violation of the framework agreement.

The Lebanese Army warned this week that Israeli aggressions are hindering completion of its deployment, delaying the return of displaced residents to their villages and undermining efforts to consolidate stability in southern Lebanon.

The source told UPI that the U.S. is exerting pressure on Israel, but “not enough,” adding that Israel “is trying to find an excuse” to withdraw from the framework agreement, which aims to end the nearly three-year war between Israel and Hezbollah and pave the way for peaceful relations between Lebanon and Israel.

July 30 (UPI) — A federal jury has convicted the New Jersey man who attempted to murder writer Salman Rushdie on additional terrorism-related charges, including attempting to provide material support to the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah.

Hadi Matar of Fairview, N.J., was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a state court in May 2025 for trying to kill Rushdie on Aug. 12, 2022.

Matar rushed the stage and stabbed the India-born writer at New York’s Chautauqua Institution in Mayville, N.Y., before being subdued by audience members and taken into police custody. Rushdie lost vision in his right eye and suffered nerve damage as a result of the attack.

A federal jury in the Western District of New York on Wednesday convicted Matar on charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, engaging in an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries and providing material support to terrorists. Matar faces a maximum penalty of life in prison on the most serious charge when sentenced on Nov. 3.

“Hadi Matar, who was born and raised in the United States, chose to align his values with the terroristic values of the leaders of Iran, which often promote violence, and in this case, the call for murder,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York Michael DiGiacomo said in a statement.

“The defendant spent months planning and preparing to carry out what he hoped would be the execution of Salman Rushdie and possibly follow in the footsteps of martyrs he admired. Instead, his attempted act of terror failed, and Salman Rushdie survived, thanks to courageous members of the public and law enforcement, who saved Rushdie and captured Matar.”

The trial began July 22, and Rushdie, 79, testified.

DiGiacomo said Rushdie answered every question asked of him by the defense and prosecutors.

“It was very powerful,” DiGiacomo said.

“And at the end, at some point, Mr. Rushdie removed his glasses so the jury could see the extent of the injury to his eye that he no longer has vision it.”

Prosecutors said Matar was attempting to carry out the orders of Iran’s late spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in 1989 called for Rushdie’s murder after the publication of his award-winning novel The Satanic Verses on the grounds that it was blasphemous to Islam.

The fatwa was reaffirmed in 2017 by Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, and endorsed by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah was killed Sept. 27, 2024, in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut, while Khamenei was killed Feb. 28 in joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Federal prosecutors said during the trial that Matar had spent more than a year researching the fatwa before deciding to try to kill Rushdie and discussed it with people in Iran, Australia and Canada.

According to the Justice Department, Matar had surrounded himself with Hezbollah symbols ahead of the attack and had traveled to the institution that day with a false driver’s license bearing the name Hassan Mughniyeh, with Hassan being Nasrallah’s first name and Mughniyeh being the surname of Hezbollah’s former external security organization head, Imad Mughniyeh.

DiGiacomo told reporters following the conviction that ahead of the attack, Matar traveled by bus from New Jersey to Buffalo, then traveled toward the Chautauqua Institution.

On the morning of the attack, Matar visited a website run by Hezbollah and took screenshots of Hezbollah operatives who had died that month.

“The evidence presented in the trial showed that this attack was not spontaneous. It was deliberate. It was research. It was planned. It was motivated by violent extremist ideology,” Alan Davis, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo field office, said during the press conference.

“For more than a year, the defendant researched a decades-old fatwa, communicated with individuals overseas about carrying it out and embraced the propaganda and symbols of Hezbollah before traveling to western New York to commit this violent act.”

Southern Lebanon’s Mansouri village is divided by Israel’s Yellow Line, a military boundary separating 6% of Lebanese territory it occupies from the rest of the country. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr spoke to residents who say they’re living with fear.

A man was convicted Wednesday of federal terrorism charges in the 2022 stabbing of Salman Rushdie, the author who has faced a decades-old death threat over his novel “The Satanic Verses.”

A jury found Hadi Matar guilty of all the charges against him, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism.

A message seeking comment was sent to Matar’s attorneys.

Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on an attempted murder conviction in the August 2022 attack on an amphitheater stage. The federal conviction carries a potential life sentence.

Rushdie, who was about to speak on writers’ safety when he was attacked, was slashed 15 times in front of a stunned audience. He was gravely wounded and lost the sight in his right eye.

Matar’s defense: No evidence of his state of mind

Prosecutors asserted that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death because of “The Satanic Verses.” Defense lawyer Nathaniel Barone countered that the government had no proof of what was in Matar’s head.

Matar himself declined to testify. Rushdie did, telling jurors: “I can’t say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body.”

Rushdie won Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for his 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” about his native India. “The Satanic Verses,” a novel of magical realism about the lives and dreams of two actors who survive a plane explosion, followed in 1988.

It drew critical acclaim in the United Kingdom but engendered protests around the Muslim world over what some believers saw as blasphemous suggestions about Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, particularly in a dream sequence. In the ensuing years, at least 45 people have been killed in riots over the book, a Japanese translator was stabbed to death, an Italian translator was attacked and survived, and the book’s Norwegian publisher survived a shooting.

Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family, has said the dream sequence was just that. But he went into hiding for years, gradually emerging after Iran’s government distanced itself in 1998 from Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious edict.

“For two decades or more, I led a public life without a hint of trouble,” Rushdie testified at the trial in Buffalo, N.Y.

Yet the fatwa was never rescinded; indeed, Khomenei’s successor, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicated in 2017 that it remained in effect. An Iranian foundation has offered a bounty of more than $3 million for killing Rushdie.

Prosecutors: Matar’s messages showed him zeroing in on Rushdie

Matar repeatedly broached the fatwa with contacts in messaging apps in 2021 and 2022, according to exhibits shown in court. The messages showed Matar fuming that he felt Rushdie had attacked Islam and, by surviving, emboldened others to insult the faith. Matar alluded to a 2006 comment along those lines by the late Hezbollah militant group leader Hassan Nasrallah, the messages showed.

Born in the U.S., Matar also holds citizenship in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. Prosecutors said that photos in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom and on his computer indicated his support for Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

Matar aimed to fulfill the fatwa and “wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah,” Asst. U.S. Atty. Timothy Lynch said in an opening statement July 22.

The messages showed Matar initially talked about wanting to “expose” Rushdie, then about killing him. In a private note to himself, he wrote: “We need to kill him ASAP,” according to Lynch. The prosecutor said Matar framed the planned killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war.

By spring 2022, the electronic chats showed, Matar wrote that he had discerned where Rushdie lived and was tracking his public appearances, eventually pointing out his scheduled August 2022 talk at the Chautauqua Institution, a western New York arts and intellectual center.

As Rushdie was being introduced, his attacker climbed on stage behind him, then stabbed him 15 times as the audience gasped. Spectators and another speaker, Henry Reese, scrambled to aid Rushdie. Law enforcement officers, assigned to the event, arrested the attacker — soon identified as Matar — after civilians restrained him.

Rushdie published a 2024 memoir about the attack, then returned to fiction with last year’s “The Eleventh Hour.” The author, who was knighted by Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II, received a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.

Peltz writes for the Associated Press.

The US has paused its two-week bombing campaign against Iran, prompting Tehran to suspend its regional retaliatory attacks.

Sumaya Yaghi returns to what’s left of her destroyed home in southern Lebanon after Israeli troops withdrew from her ‘pilot zone’ village under a US-backed agreement.

Trump says the US remains ‘locked and loaded’ while pursuing talks with Iran, as Tehran reports strikes on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

Israeli attacks come amid ongoing talks with Lebanese officials to implement framework for peace between two countries.

The Israeli army has attacked the southern Lebanese town of al-Mansouri and carried out blasts in the nearby village of Majdal Zoun, Lebanon’s National News Agency reports, despite the “ceasefie” and ongoing talks between the two countries.

The explosion in Majdal Zoun on Friday was heard as far away as city of Tyre, over 15 kilometres (nine miles) away, according to local reports.

The attack and demolitions have become a routine feature of life in southern Lebanon, despite a United States-brokered framework that is supposed to end the fighting and lead to “peace”.

On Thursday, an Israeli strike on an ambulance in Nabatieh al-Fawqa injured two medics. The Lebanese Health Ministry called the attack a “flagrant violation of international and humanitarian laws and norms”.

Israel has been systematically levelling entire villages near the border, with Israeli officials openly declaring the objective of erasing Lebanese towns out of existence to create a “security zone”.

Israel occupies nearly fifth of Lebanese territory and has killed more than 4,000 people since fighting erupted on March 2, maintaining that its operations are aimed at stopping Lebanese armed group Hezbollah from launching assaults into northern Israel.

However, the demolitions bear close resemblance to Israel’s tactics in Gaza, where a “ceasefire” has not halted the Israeli military’s campaign to destroy the territory. Rights advocates say Israel’s policies aim to make the strip uninhabitable.

US President Donald Trump promised to “help” Lebanon during a White House meeting with Lebanese president Joseph Aoun earlier this week.

Asked whether there will be a timeline for Israel’s withdrawal from the country, Trump said: “They’re in the process of doing that. They’re in the process of redeploying [to] other sections.”

Under the framework agreement signed in Washington on June 26, the Lebanese army is to take over Israel-occupied territories in the south, provided that Hezbollah is disarmed.

Lebanese and Israeli officials have been meeting regularly to discuss the implementation of the deal with the next round of talks scheduled for August 4 in Italy.

Hezbollah has rejected the agreement outright, with its leader Naim Qassem calling the deal “null and void” and calling for armed resistance to push Israel out of Lebanon.

The deal sets no timeline for withdrawal. Instead, it outlines two “pilot zones” where the Lebanese military “will gradually assume full and effective security responsibility”.

The Lebanese army deployed to the first pilot-zone villages this week. But residents returning to Froun and Ghandouriyeh say their villages were never occupied by Israeli forces, arguing that Israel has not given back any territory.

Trump says he is considering a ‘massive attack’, as Iran’s Araghchi says ‘mindless aggression’ won’t help a deal.

July 22 (UPI) — The man who rushed a stage to attack author Salman Rushdie will face federal terrorism charges in a trial that began Wednesday in New York.

Hadi Matar, 28, was found guilty of murder in state court last year and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the August 2022 attack that left Rushdie blind in one eye and without use of one hand.

The federal case will determine if the attack was an act of terrorism and if he was carrying out a fatwa against Rushdie, set by the former Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, or if it was for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, or neither.

Khomeini, then the ayatollah of Iran, created the fatwa in 1989 because of Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988. Hardline Muslims considered the book blasphemous because of the way it portrayed the Prophet Muhammad.

The attack on Rushdie happened at the Chautauquah Institution in Chautauquah, N.Y., as he was delivering a speech for more than 1,000 people on writers in political exile. Matar rushed the stage and stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times.

Matar is a U.S. citizen of Lebanese origin who was raised in New Jersey and California. His friends and relatives said that after some professional and academic frustration, he became religious. His mother told The New York Times that she could not support him.

Rushdie, 79, wrote and published in 2024, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, a memoir about the attack and his recovery.

Matar had written in his notebook a list of pros and cons to attacking Rushdie. The Times reported that a page provided by prosecutors showed that he wrote one reason not to do it was: “Could make life worse. But I doubt that. It kind of sucks already.”

Meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House, US President Trump said he is open to direct talks with Hezbollah if requested by Lebanon. He pledged continued US support for the country.