kills

Nearly half a million people are displaced in Rakhine as a result of the conflict between the military and rebel groups.

An air strike carried out by Myanmar’s military has killed at least 33 people in territory controlled by rebel factions.

The attack near a market in the north of the Rakhine state in the west of the country on Monday also wounded 36 people, rescue and rebel group officials reported. The strikes are the latest in a series of assaults against pro-democracy and ethnic armed groups by the military government, which took power in a coup in 2021, sparking armed opposition.

The Arakan army said a fighter jet dropped two bombs near a local market in the town of Kyauktaw at noon local time (0530 GMT), killing 33 people, including vendors, shoppers, and pedestrians. It said the death toll “may continue to increase”.

Wai Hun Aung, a senior rescue official in Rakhine, confirmed the details to the Associated Press news agency. He said the market was the region’s main wholesale centre, drawing traders and shoppers from across the state.

“This is one of the most severe airstrikes in Rakhine,” he said. Photos and videos posted on social media showed buildings on fire, damaged vehicles and parts of a nearby bridge destroyed.

Myanmar’s military did not immediately comment, but it has previously said it strikes only legitimate military targets and accused resistance groups of “terrorism”.

Myanmar has been gripped by ⁠conflict since the elected ⁠government led by Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted in the 2021 coup. A nationwide resistance movement has since evolved into a civil war between the ‌military government and an array of armed ethnic and pro-democracy groups.

President Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s former military government chief, was elected by ‌a military-backed Parliament in April, formalising his grip on power after five years of army rule.

The Arakan army is a well-trained and well-armed military group seeking autonomy for Rakhine’s ethnic minority. It launched an offensive in November 2023 and has since captured strategically important military headquarters and 14 of the state’s 17 townships.

The military has imposed severe restrictions on trade routes to Rakhine since the fighting there intensified, worsening food shortages.

In December, a military airstrike on a hospital in Rakhine’s Mrauk U township killed at least 33 people and wounded 70 others.

Nearly half a million people are displaced in Rakhine as a result of the conflict, according to United Nations data. The UN added in August that the human rights situation in Myanmar has plummeted “to a new low”, citing “brutal abuse” against the Rohingya minority and the devastating impact of illicit economic activity, including illegal mining for rare earth minerals.

Rebel groups and Myanmar’s military are now both using drones in the protracted conflict, which has killed more than 100,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project.

Civilians and senior military officials among 14 dead after an army plane crashes into a residential area in the DRC.

At least 14 people, including senior military officials, were killed on Friday when a Congolese army plane crashed in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The plane was travelling to the capital, Kinshasa, from the southwestern city of Kikwit on Friday when it developed a technical fault and attempted to land in Kenge, in Kwango province.

Remy Saki Bokinda, deputy governor of Kwango, said: “With no landing strip available in Kenge, the plane crashed into a residential plot.”

Congolese military spokesperson Major-General Efomi Ekenge said 14 people had died in the crash.

“All those on board died; 12 were burned beyond recognition, while the pilot’s lifeless body was found outside the aircraft,” he said.

According to the military, among those killed were civilians and members of an official delegation travelling with the two generals, along with other military personnel.

Bokinda also said most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition and the pilot was found dead outside the wreckage.

An investigation has been opened to determine the cause of the accident, Ekenge said.

The DRC, a vast, mineral-rich country in central Africa, has endured decades of conflict, particularly along its eastern border with Rwanda, where several armed groups compete for control of lucrative mining areas.

The Congolese military has been battling a number of rebel groups that have claimed key cities in the country since last year.

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy denounces ‘horrific crime’ after 31-year-old attacks clergy and worshippers in border town.

One person was killed and four others injured when a man armed with a knife attacked clergy and worshippers at a Catholic monastery in southern Poland.

Police said the 31-year-old attacker, a Ukrainian national, went on a stabbing spree at the 17th-century Benedictine abbey in Jaroslaw, some 30km (19 miles) from the border with Ukraine, on Thursday morning.

The suspect, who had entered Poland from Germany earlier in the day, reportedly grabbed a knife from the abbey’s kitchen and attacked four men and one woman, including a priest in a confessional, police said.

“Three of the victims are clergy members and two are laypeople; one person has died,” said prosecutor Bozena Harasz-Wołoszyn. Two others were in “critical, life-threatening condition”.

Polish media identified the man who died as a priest. Police did not immediately confirm the identity of the deceased.

Prosecutors said the attacker was headed for a nearby border crossing back into Ukraine but instead went to the abbey.

The motive remains unclear, and doctors will assess whether he was under the influence of alcohol, Harasz-Wołoszyn said.

Leaders respond

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the “murderer” would be “punished with the full severity of Polish law”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a “horrific crime”.

“The perpetrator of this evil must bear full responsibility in accordance with the law … We are shaken by this evil. Justice must be done.”

The mayor of Jaroslaw, Marcin Nazarewicz, declared a period of mourning until the end of the week.

Stabbings, particularly at religious sites, are extremely rare in Poland, one of Europe’s most Catholic countries.

Storm is moving northeast of Japan’s eastern coast across the Pacific, leaving a path of destruction behind.

A powerful storm has triggered evacuation advisories for more than 1.6 million people, causing widespread travel chaos, flooding and landslides near Tokyo.

On Monday, Typhoon Dujuan packed wind speeds of about 144 kilometres (89 miles) per hour as it moved 130km (80 miles) south of Katsuura, near the Japanese capital, cutting power to thousands of households.

Two people have been confirmed dead, Kyodo News reported, citing local authorities.

By early Tuesday, the storm had shifted away from the coast and was heading northeast out to sea towards the Aleutian Islands, with slightly diminished winds, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

In areas where warnings have been issued, “there’s a risk the rain will continue as the typhoon moves north”, the JMA’s Takuya Hosomi said.

Passengers were stranded at airports after Japan Airlines cancelled 135 flights and All Nippon Airways scrapped 140 on Monday.

Some rail services were suspended, including bullet train services connecting Tokyo and Osaka, Japan Railways said.

The JMA warned on Sunday that rain and winds were expected to intensify even before the typhoon’s arrival.

“The total rainfall through Tuesday could exceed the average monthly rainfall for September, resulting in record-breaking heavy rain,” the agency said.

Social media posts showed images of flooded roads in front of Kamakura station, a popular sightseeing spot.

“There is flooding in various parts of the city, so travelling by car is dangerous,” Kamakura Mayor Takashi Matsuo said on X.

Floodwaters also inundated parts of Ichikawa, east of Tokyo.

Dujuan forced the early closure of the Tokyo Game Show, one of the world’s biggest video game trade fairs, on Monday, its final day.

A major outdoor music festival and a baseball match, both scheduled to be held in Chiba, were also cancelled.

Dujuan is Japan’s 25th typhoon this year. The country often sees strong typhoons in the late summer and early autumn.

Moscow mayor reports intercepting 1,600 drones during ‘unprecedented’ attack, accusing Ukraine of election interference.

At least two people have been killed and a major refinery has been damaged as hundreds of drones targeted the Russian capital, Moscow, and its surrounding region on the final day of the country’s parliamentary elections.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Sunday that more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted and shot down, 450 of which were heading for Moscow.

He also accused Ukraine of attempting to interfere with a tightly controlled three-day election that is set to tighten President Vladimir Putin’s 26-year grip on power.

“The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed,” he said on Telegram.

Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov said on social media that a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man were killed in two separate locations.

A fire triggered by a drone crashing into a 21-storey building forced the evacuation of 400 people, Vorobyov said.

The strikes come as Kyiv has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russia, particularly targeting energy infrastructure to cut off a vital source of Kremlin revenue used to fund its war effort, now in its fifth year.

“A facility on the territory of the Moscow Oil Refinery has been damaged,” Sobyanin added, saying that no casualties were reported so far and emergency services were on the scene.

The major refinery has already been hit by Ukrainian strikes in recent months.

The latest strike follows claims by US President Donald Trump on Monday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities.

It also comes as Russians vote in the country’s first parliamentary elections since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, igniting a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Moscow has also organised voting in parts of Ukraine that it has seized in the four-and-a-half-year war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported that Russia launched 138 drones of various types across the country overnight, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

It added that air defences managed to shoot down or neutralise 101 of them.

Separate attacks struck central refugee camps as officials warned Gaza’s health sector faces total collapse.

An Israeli strike on a motorcycle has killed one Palestinian and injured others, with one child in critical condition, reports the Palestinian Wafa news agency.

The air strike targeted the vehicle in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, west of Gaza City, on Friday. Ongoing Israeli strikes on the besieged enclave have killed at least 1,381 people since the ceasefire was announced in October 2025.

Israel has killed at least 73,795 people and wounded 174,869 others since the start of its genocidal war in October 2023.

On Friday, the Israeli army also opened fire in the Nuseirat and al-Bureij refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, reports Wafa. The attacks on tents sheltering displaced people have resulted in multiple injuries.

Earlier this week, an Israeli “double-tap” air strike killed a paramedic and a 15-year-old schoolboy in Gaza City. Israeli forces claimed they were targeting Hamas operatives.

Last month, UNICEF found that, on average, one child is killed a day by Israel.

Families are now confined to about a third of the enclave, sheltering among destroyed buildings, rubble and uncleared waste, the agency said.

On Wednesday, a previously damaged building collapsed in Gaza City, killing at least 21 people, including 12 children. The Palestinian Civil Defence agency in Gaza struggled to recover bodies from under the rubble due to Israel’s severe restrictions on heavy equipment.

The Health Ministry warned on Wednesday that Gaza’s health system was on the verge of “total collapse” as Israel continues to limit the amount of medical aid and fuel permitted to enter the enclave.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Attack not immediately claimed, but an ISIL affiliate and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) are both active in the region and regularly target troops.

A bomb attack at a mosque in Pakistan’s restive north-west has killed at least 15 people, with more than 50 reported injured.

An explosive-laden car was rammed into the entrance of a mosque at a police headquarters in Kohat, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa near the Afghan border, as people gathered for Friday prayers.

At least 15 bodies and more than 50 injured people were taken to hospital in the town, Dr Tahir Shah said, according to the dpa news agency. The death toll could rise as several injured people were in a critical condition, he added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. However, both a regional affiliate of the ISIL armed group and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) are active in the region and regularly target security forces.

Violence has surged in Pakistan’s remote regions near the Afghan border in recent years. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers of allowing militants who orchestrate attacks in Pakistan to operate from Afghan territory.

Officials in Kabul deny the accusation. However, the issue has seen the pair swap strikes across the border across recent months.

More to come…

KYIV: A Russian drone struck a passenger bus in southern Ukraine early Wednesday, killing five people and wounding at least seven in the latest in a series of Russian strikes on civilian transportation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack an atrocity with no military purpose.

The strike occurred in the Nikopol district of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, near the war’s southern front line. Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said that all five were killed at the scene while the seven wounded were receiving medical care.

Zelensky described the vehicle as a minibus and said in an X post that the strike had “no military rationale” and that it was “just another atrocity.” He said the strike was connected to Russia’s targeting of logistics and critical infrastructure that has continued “unabated.”

Zelensky said that a passenger train was also struck in the Mykolaiv region on Wednesday, damaging a railway station and a diesel locomotive. Nearly 170 passengers on board the train were evacuated before the strike. An electric locomotive in the northwestern city of Kovel was also struck, Zelensky said.

Ukraine requests locomotives from partners

Russian strikes on Ukraine’s rail network have resulted in more than 500 locomotives being damaged or completely destroyed since the beginning of the all-out war on Feb. 24, 2022, with more than half those strikes occurring this year, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X on Tuesday.

Sybiha described such attacks as “systematic” and aimed at disrupting logistics across Ukraine. He said that Ukraine urgently needs replacements for damaged locomotives, and called on the country’s partners to assist in finding locomotives compatible with its 1,520-millimeter rail gauge and to assist in financing.

In another post on X on Wednesday, Sybiha said that Russian forces were striking passenger trains, locomotives, stations and railway routes “knowing exactly how essential they are for civilians, evacuations and Ukraine’s economy.”

“This is not collateral damage. It is a systematic hunt for people and an attempt to (paralyze) civilian life,” he wrote.

Zelensky says there is no truce on halting energy strikes

In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Zelensky pushed back against an earlier claim by US President Donald Trump that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to mutually cease attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure. Zelensky said that Ukraine was ready to enter such an agreement, if Russia stops striking Ukrainian energy facilities.

Trump said in a social media post Monday that such a truce had been reached, but didn’t offer details on the purported agreement. Previous efforts to broker even a partial ceasefire have repeatedly fallen apart within hours, with both sides accusing the other of violations.

In the CBS interview, Zelensky said that the possibility of an energy truce was discussed during a recent meeting in Kyiv with Trump’s representatives, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, but that he had told them: “If the Russians are ready for an energy truce, that means there will be no attacks on energy facilities at all.”

Russia decorates ship captain who fired flares at Danish helicopter

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the captain of a Russian warship that fired two signal flares toward a Danish military helicopter on Monday, drawing ire from Denmark, has been awarded a medal for his “competent and resolute action.”

The ministry said in a statement that the Soobrazitelny corvette was on a mission in neutral waters in the Baltic Sea when its crew spotted the approaching helicopter, which failed to respond to calls made via the international communication channel.

“To prevent a provocation by the Danish helicopter, the corvette commander decided to fire two red signal flares, after which the helicopter left the area where the Russian warship was located,” the ministry said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow has no aggressive intentions toward Europe, but that if countries on the continent were to launch an attack on Russia, “it would be a completely different kind of war, and a very short one.”

Russian general killed in Ukrainian drone strike

The deputy head of the Russian armed forces’ military-political department, Lt. Gen. Apti Alaudinov, confirmed Wednesday that a decorated Russian general had been killed in the occupied Donetsk region.

Alaudinov, who didn’t provide details on the circumstances of Maj. Gen. Anton Grunis’ death, hailed the officer as “a hero” and “one of the most respected generals … a real man and officer and a great patriot.”

The confirmation of Grunis’ death came after Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, alleged on Wednesday that Grunis had been killed in occupied Donetsk by a Ukrainian drone while at a command post in the village of Kindrativka.

In July, Grunis reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his troops had captured the town of Kostiantynivka and he was later awarded the Hero of Russia medal. Ukraine has disputed that Kostiantynivka was fully taken by Russian forces.

Grunis had previously fought in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim republic whose bid for independence after the Soviet Union’s collapse led to years of war with Russian government forces. He also took part in Russia’s campaign in Syria.

In Ukraine, he commanded the 4th Guards Motorized Infantry Brigade.

Meanwhile, 17 other sites were damaged in Ukraine’s Kyiv region between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, according to the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, Tymur Tkachenko. Eight private homes, five vehicles, a municipal building, a hangar and a production facility were among the sites damaged, Tkachenko said on Telegram.

Zelensky said on X that the Kherson, Donetsk and Poltava regions had also come under attack.

In the northern city of Sumy, six people were injured in a Russian guided aerial bomb attack, including a 14-year-old girl, according to the head of the Sumy regional military administration Oleh Hryhorov. Two homes were destroyed and 10 others damaged in the strikes, along with damage to an educational facility, Hryhorov said, adding that two other men were hospitalized after a separate strike hit an industrial zone.

In the port city of Odesa, one person was killed in a Russian attack that sparked a fire at garages and damaged vehicles and private homes, Serhii Lysak, head of the city’s military administration, wrote on Telegram Wednesday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its air defenses downed 71 Ukrainian drones overnight. In the Belgorod region, one person was killed and four others were wounded by Ukrainian strikes over the last 24 hours, according to acting governor Alexander Shuvayev.

DUBAI: Britain will “no longer stand by” while Israel kills Palestinian children in Gaza, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh said on Tuesday, pledging to increase pressure on Tel Aviv over the war and illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Speaking at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton, Haigh said Prime Minister Andy Burnham was right to acknowledge that Britain had been “too slow” in its response to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

“At a time when it has never been more important to remind the world who we are, we hesitated,” Haigh said.

“We will no longer stand by while innocent Palestinian families are torn apart, while innocent children are killed in Gaza, and while the hope of a two-state solution evaporates before our eyes,” she added.

Haigh said sanctions announced last week by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband were intended to “change course,” adding that Britain was “purposefully targeting the illegal settlements” and increasing pressure on the Israeli government.

The measures include sanctions targeting individuals and companies linked to Israeli settlement expansion, as well as a ban on imports from settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli people are not responsible for the actions of their government,” Haigh said. “We will stand against injustice. We will stand up for peace.”

She added that Britain would work with international partners to “speak with one voice” and help preserve the prospect of a two-state solution.

CAIRO: An ‌Israeli airstrike on Sunday killed at least two Palestinians in a vehicle and wounded 13 others in the Gaza Strip, medical staff said.

The strike in the Tel Al-Hawa neighbourhood in western Gaza City, left the vehicle mangled, according to footage circulated on social media. Local medical staff told ‌Reuters that ‌they urged people to provide ‌information that could help identify the two people who were killed and whose bodies were dismembered by the explosion.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted two Hamas militants, without giving further information.

An October 2025, U.S.-backed, ceasefire halted large-scale fighting in ‌Gaza, but ‌it has not ended Israeli strikes and ‌there has been little progress on ‌steps towards permanent peace. Hamas accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire and undermining efforts to implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s broader plan ‌to end the Gaza conflict, which includes the Israeli withdrawal from the strip and the disarmament of Hamas. Israel says Hamas has been violating the deal.

More than 1,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s health officials, while the Israeli military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Hamas does not usually disclose information about fatalities among its fighters.

GAZA: An Israeli strike in Gaza on Thursday killed a family including two children, Palestinian hospital and security sources said.

“The bodies of four members of the Ahmad family were recovered in pieces after an Israeli strike hit a house in the Beit Lahia Project area in the northern Gaza Strip,” an official at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said, identifying the children as aged 12 and eight.

The Israeli military, contacted by AFP, said it was checking.

KYIV: A Russian drone strike on a shopping centre in the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed three people and ‌injured two, Regional ‌Governor Oleh ‌Hryhorov said.

Hryhorov, writing on Telegram, said a fire had broken out, and a photo posted online by the governor showed ‌a ‌badly damaged building and ‌rubble strewn on ‌the ground.

He said rescue teams were tackling the aftermath of ‌the strike.

Sumy and the surrounding region along the Russian border have long been subject to heavy attacks and Moscow has said it wants to establish a buffer zone in the area.

An Israeli air attack on Kfar Reman in southern Lebanon has killed at least 10 people, including an infant, with at least two others missing.

The attack early on Monday on the town in the Nabatieh district comes a day after at least seven people were killed and 20 others were wounded in Israeli air raids on the nearby town of Arab Salim.

The Israeli military also struck a residential area in the town of Deir al-Zahrani in southern Lebanon overnight after it issued a forced evacuation order. The army says it targeted a building near a Hezbollah facility, which it claims was used to launch an explosive drone.

Attacks continued despite a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon in June.

Reporting from Kfar Reman on Monday after overnight strikes, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said “uncertainty and fear” are the prevailing feelings in southern Lebanon. “Among the dead are children, including a two-month-old infant,” she said.

“People just do not know what is next. There’s been a wave of Israeli attacks over the past 48 hours. Civilians are being killed. Residential homes are being destroyed,” she said, adding, “Recovery efforts by civil defence workers are continuing. They’ve been here throughout the night.”

Rescue teams work to locate survivors after New Delhi building collapse.

A multistorey building in the Indian capital, New Delhi, has collapsed, killing at least six people and trapping dozens of others.

Rescue teams are searching the rubble of the collapsed building, which housed mostly students, near a Delhi University campus in Satya Niketan on Sunday.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said it treated several victims after the incident.

“Out of the 10 patients, five were brought dead, while one patient who was in critical condition later succumbed to his injuries,” AIIMS said in a statement.

Crews from India’s disaster response agency, police and firefighters cleared debris with earthmovers and used detection dogs to search for those trapped inside. A nearby building was evacuated over concerns that it could also collapse.

Up to 40 people remain trapped under the rubble, according to fire officer Abhilash Malik. The number of survivors and the cause of the accident were not immediately clear.

A video filmed by a man trapped under the rubble as onlookers called for rescuers to help him has circulated online. Additional footage showed residents attempting to rescue survivors before disaster response teams arrived.

“The most important thing for us is to save the lives of these students. Rescue operations will carry on,” Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta told local news outlets.

“I assure you we won’t spare the guilty,” she said.

“Condolences to those who lost their loved ones. Praying for the speedy recovery of the injured. Authorities are working at the site and assisting those affected in the mishap,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office said on X.

Building collapses are frequent in parts of India during the rainy season from June to September. A similar incident occurred on Saturday after a three-storey building collapsed in northern India following heavy rain. No casualties were reported.

In 2025, at least 11 people were killed after a residential building collapsed in the northeastern district of New Delhi.

TEHRAN: A fuel tanker exploded in western Iran, killing 11 people and injuring seven others, state media said.

IRNA reported late Saturday that the tanker hit other cars before bursting into flames near a traffic police station close to the Kurdish city of Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (248 miles) west of the capital, Tehran. The report cited a faulty brake system.

The injured were transferred to hospitals.

In 2018, a similar road accident between a fuel tanker and an intercity passenger bus near Sanandaj killed 15 people and injured four.

Road and traffic accidents annually leave more than 17,000 dead in Iran. Experts blame the high fatality rate on unsafe vehicles, disregard for traffic rules, and inadequate emergency services.

Israeli attacks against villages and towns across southern Lebanon continue despite truce agreements and diplomacy.

An Israeli air strike targeting a motorcycle has killed two people in the Lebanese town of Kfar Reman, the Ministry of Public Health has said, as Israeli forces intensify attacks on southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported on Friday that the strike hit in Nabatieh near the strategic Ali al-Taher ridge, which the Israeli army said it had captured, though Hezbollah did not confirm losing it.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday claimed the military had cleared Hezbollah fighters embedded in tunnels under the strategic ridge, which overlooks a wide area that has become one of the most hotly contested.

Israeli raids and artillery shelling also targeted seven towns in the Tyre and Nabatieh districts, causing no casualties.

NNA said the attacks hit al-Mansouri, Majdal Zoun, Buyout al-Sayyad, Beit Lif and Srebbine in the Tyre district, as well as Zawtar al-Sharqiyah and Mayfadoun in Nabatieh.

The attacks come amid continued Israeli escalation against villages and towns across southern Lebanon despite two truce agreements – on June 4 and 26 – mediated by United States President Donald Trump’s administration.

The June 4 ceasefire was contingent on a “complete cessation” of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of its fighters from the area south of the Litani River.

The June 26 framework agreement did not specifically call for the withdrawal of the Israeli forces and instead tied it to the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Since March 2, when the latest Israeli escalation in its war on Lebanon began, Israeli attacks have killed more than 4,000 people and injured at least 12,000 others, while forcing more than one million people from their homes, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israel has expanded its military presence across swaths of southern Lebanon since launching its new campaign against Hezbollah, which fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for US-Israeli air strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

On Friday, Israeli authorities separately released four Lebanese people who had been held in Israeli prisons after being detained in southern Lebanon.

They were transferred to Lebanese authorities via the International Committee of the Red Cross, a day after one Lebanese man was released as part of an agreement between the two countries.

One person has died and 15 remain missing or unaccounted for after flash flooding swept through parts of the Grand Canyon, the National Park Service (NPS) has said.

The flood hit Bright Angel Canyon and the Phantom Ranch area on Saturday afternoon, wiping out footbridges and propelling boulders downstream.

The body of a 46-year-old man was found on Sunday evening near Crystal Rapids along the Colorado River, the park service told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Sixty-two people have so far been airlifted out of the area.

“The whole thing was terrifying,” said Nikki Baggs, 41, who was among those to be airlifted out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon with her two friends.

“It was a beautiful day and then people were screaming, running,” she told the BBC.

Baggs said she and her friends had just dropped off their belongings at a cabin in Phantom Ranch – a remote lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon – when they decided to venture out to enjoy the nice day. Before they knew it, a flood of water was sweeping through the area.

As soon as the rain hit, Baggs and her friends headed toward higher ground, where they sat at a picnic table, before rangers yelled to them to run again to a different ledge, where they waited with others for hours before they were evacuated at around 21:30 local time (04:30 GMT).

Baggs said she and her two friends had been looking forward to a steak dinner at Phantom Ranch – but were now just grateful to be alive thanks to a swift response from park rangers.

“It was a really uniquely co-ordinated effort,” she said. “That’s what made us feel safe about all of it in an unsafe situation.”

Baggs said she and her friends watched from higher ground as bridges were swept away.