Israeli Airstrike Reportedly Hits Truck in Lebanon Carrying Military Equipment

A picture shows a house damaged in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on August 26, 2024. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)
A picture shows a house damaged in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on August 26, 2024. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)
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Israeli Airstrike Reportedly Hits Truck in Lebanon Carrying Military Equipment

A picture shows a house damaged in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on August 26, 2024. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)
A picture shows a house damaged in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on August 26, 2024. (Photo by Rabih DAHER / AFP)

An Israeli airstrike hit a pickup truck traveling in northeast Lebanon late on Tuesday, two security sources told Reuters, with one of the sources saying it carried military equipment.

The two sources said the strike hit a pickup near Chaat, a remote area of Lebanon near the Syrian border, but that the driver survived.

One of the sources said it was likely the military equipment being transported was a damaged rocket launcher on the way to be repaired.

Two days earlier, Hezbollah and the Israeli military engaged in one of the most intense exchanges of fire between them over the last 10 months amid fears that Israel's war in Gaza would become a wider regional conflict.

Hezbollah fired drones and rockets at Israel early on Sunday to avenge a top military commander killed by Israel last month.

Israel has said its strikes on Lebanon on Sunday destroyed Hezbollah rocket launch sites and prevented a wider attack by the group. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the attack had gone as planned and that Israeli strikes afterwards had damaged some Hezbollah launch sites.



Indonesia Urges Respect for International Law After Peacekeepers Killed in Lebanon

United Nations peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) drive past a Lebanese army outpost in the area of Naqoura in southern Lebanon on March 27, 2026. (AFP)
United Nations peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) drive past a Lebanese army outpost in the area of Naqoura in southern Lebanon on March 27, 2026. (AFP)
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Indonesia Urges Respect for International Law After Peacekeepers Killed in Lebanon

United Nations peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) drive past a Lebanese army outpost in the area of Naqoura in southern Lebanon on March 27, 2026. (AFP)
United Nations peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) drive past a Lebanese army outpost in the area of Naqoura in southern Lebanon on March 27, 2026. (AFP)

Indonesia urged warring parties in the Middle East "to respect international humanitarian law" after three of its peacekeepers were killed in Lebanon.

"The safety of peacekeeping troops must be the top priority. All parties to the conflict are urged to respect international humanitarian law and ensure the security of peacekeeping personnel," defense ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirait said in a statement.

Three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed in two separate incidents in southern Lebanon after a bloody weekend in which Lebanese journalists and medics were killed in Israeli strikes.

Two peacekeepers were killed on Monday after an explosion from an unknown origin destroyed their vehicle near Bani Hayyan in south Lebanon, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement. Two other soldiers were wounded in the blast.

Another Indonesian soldier was killed overnight Sunday into Monday when a projectile exploded near one of the group's positions close to the southern Lebanese village of Adchit al-Qusayr. Another peacekeeper was critically injured at the time.

The death on Sunday was the first among the UN's peacekeeping force in the new war between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah which erupted on March 2.

"These are two separate incidents and we are investigating them as two separate incidents," said UNIFIL's spokesperson Kandice Ardiel.

In response to the first death, Indonesia's foreign ministry said on Monday ‌the deceased peacekeeper ‌was one of its citizens and that three others were injured by "indirect artillery fire".

Indonesia condemned ‌the ⁠incident and said ⁠any harm to peacekeepers is unacceptable, while reiterating its condemnation "of Israel's attacks in southern Lebanon."

The country's Foreign Minister Sugiono called on Tuesday in a post on social media website X for an emergency UN Security Council meeting and "for a swift, thorough, and transparent investigation" into the "heinous attack" after speaking with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Israel's military said early on Tuesday it is aware of the reports regarding the two incidents and they are being reviewed thoroughly to determine whether they resulted from Hezbollah or the military's activity.

Guterres said attacks on peacekeepers are grave violations of international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.

"We strongly condemn these unacceptable incidents - peacekeepers must never be a target," the UN peacekeeping chief ⁠Jean-Pierre Lacroix told reporters in a briefing on Monday.

PARAMEDICS, JOURNALISTS KILLED

UNIFIL is stationed in southern ‌Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line with Israel - an area that is at ‌the heart of clashes between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.

Lebanon was pulled into the war in the Middle East when Hezbollah fired rockets ‌at Israel in solidarity with Tehran, two days after Iran was attacked by Israel and the United States. Hezbollah's attack prompted ‌a new Israeli ground and air offensive.

More than 1,240 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. They include more than 120 children, nearly 80 women and dozens of paramedics.

More than 400 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since March 2, according to two sources familiar with Hezbollah's count. The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings to residents of six villages in Lebanon's western Bekaa region on Monday, in the first such ‌warning for those areas.

The military said the warning was prompted by what it described as militant activity in the area, without providing further details.

Fresh airstrikes hit several towns in southern Lebanon ⁠on Monday and at least one ⁠strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs.

The Israeli military said strikes in Beirut targeted commanders responsible for coordination between Hezbollah and Palestinian armed groups. At least 10 paramedics were killed over the weekend in Israeli strikes, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on their car on Saturday.

The Israeli military has accused Hezbollah operatives of posing as Lebanese paramedics, and has said that some journalists it killed were part of the group's intelligence or military wing. It has not publicly provided evidence to support those claims.

Lebanon's health ministry has denied that any ambulances or health facilities are used for military purposes.

Lebanon's presidency has said that targeted journalists are "civilians performing a professional duty."

Israel has said it intends to control a buffer zone up to the Litani River, which runs about 30 km (20 miles) north of the Lebanese border with Israel.

Its ground troops have been pushing into Lebanese border towns and demolishing homes in the area.

Israel's military said on Monday that a sixth soldier had been killed in fighting in southern Lebanon. Lebanon's armed forces said that a Lebanese soldier had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. At least nine Lebanese soldiers have been killed by Israel.

Lebanon's army has not been fighting Israeli forces.


Israeli Death Penalty Bill for Palestinian Murder Convicts Faces Vote

Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
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Israeli Death Penalty Bill for Palestinian Murder Convicts Faces Vote

Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon

Israel's parliament is expected on Monday to vote on a bill that would make the death penalty a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military court of killing Israelis, a measure that Israel's European allies say would unfairly target Palestinians under military occupation.

The measure includes provisions requiring sentencing within 90 days with no right to clemency. It was devised by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister who along with other ardent supporters has worn noose-shaped lapel pins in the run-up to the vote, Reuters reported.

The bill's critics say it aims at Palestinians in the West Bank by instructing military courts in the occupied territory to impose the death penalty in cases involving killings of Israelis, except in "special circumstances". Those courts only try Palestinians and have a near-100% conviction rate, rights groups say.

The vote on the bill is the latest action by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition to cause concern among Israel's allies in Europe, who have also been critical of Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Netanyahu's Likud party was expected to vote in favor of the bill. Israeli media reported that he had previously asked for some elements of the measure to be softened to head off an international backlash.

The original bill had mandated the death sentence for non-Israeli citizens in the West Bank convicted of deadly terrorist acts. The revised legislation that is up for a vote on Monday includes the option of life imprisonment.

Even before the vote on its passage, the bill drew criticism from the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain, who said it had a "de facto discriminatory" character toward Palestinians.

"The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel's commitments with regards to democratic principles," the ministers said in a joint statement on Sunday.

A group of United Nations experts has said that the bill includes "vague and overbroad definitions of terrorist", meaning the death penalty could be meted out over "conduct that is not genuinely terrorist" in nature.

Ben-Gvir has argued that the death penalty would deter those considering an attack similar to the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023, that killed nearly 1,200 in Israel. Israel's subsequent military assault in Gaza has killed more than 72,000.

Amnesty International, which tracks countries imposing death penalty laws, says there "is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment."

Israeli rights groups have said they will challenge the bill at Israel's Supreme Court if it becomes law.

Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. The only person ever executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.

Military courts retained the option of imposing a death sentence but have not done so so far.

Some 54 countries around the world permit the death penalty, including a handful of democracies such as the United States and Japan, according to Amnesty International. The group says that the global trend on the death penalty is toward abolition, with 113 countries having outlawed it for all crimes.

The Israeli rights group B'Tselem says that military courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96% conviction rate and have a history of extracting confessions through torture.

Ben-Gvir, known for keeping a portrait in his living room of a Jewish gunman who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in a West Bank mosque, has overseen an overhaul of Israeli prisons that have led to widespread allegations of torture, starvation, and abuse of Palestinian prisoners.

Israel denies systematic abuse of prisoners in its jails.

Abdallah Al Zughari, the head of the Palestinian Prisoner's Club, said that Palestinians in Israeli jails had already been subject to "slow killing practices" that have led to the deaths of more than 100 prisoners since October 7, 2023.

The death penalty bill, should it become law, would pose a "major threat to the lives of detainees," Zughari said.


Syrian Leader Pledges to Work with Germany on Migration, Recovery

Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)
Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)
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Syrian Leader Pledges to Work with Germany on Migration, Recovery

Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)
Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa smiles during the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (AP)

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday pledged to work with Germany to enable more Syrians to return home and rebuild their country after its devastating civil war, as he made a historic visit to Berlin.

Europe's top economy is home to the largest Syrian diaspora in the European Union at more than a million, many of whom arrived during the peak of the migrant influx in 2015-2016.

After meeting Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Sharaa said that "we are working with our friends in the German government to establish a 'circular' migration model", AFP reported.

This would "enable Syrians to contribute to the reconstruction of their homeland without giving up the stability and lives they have built here, for those who wish to stay", he said.

Merz, who has made a tougher immigration policy a priority since taking office last year, also said he and Sharaa were "working jointly towards more Syrians being able to return to their homeland".

Sharaa was speaking on his first trip to Germany since ousting his country's longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.

He has managed to build relations with Western governments and made several overseas trips, including to the United States, France and Russia.

As a result, many international sanctions on Syria have been lifted to help the country rebuild after a bloody 14-year civil war.

Earlier, Sharaa told a foreign ministry forum in Berlin that Syria had experienced a "huge amount of destruction" during its long conflict, saying that Syrians "want to catch up with the rest of the world" as Germany did after World War II.

He pointed to investment opportunities in Syria's energy, transport and tourism sectors, describing his homeland as very diverse and with "a great wealth of human resources".

Merz said Germany wanted to "support" reconstruction in Syria as it struggles to rebuild after a long and bloody civil war, adding that a German government delegation would travel to the Middle Eastern country in the next few days.

However, Merz also said that he had stressed to Sharaa in their meeting "that many joint projects in the future will depend on our finding a state governed by the rule of law".