Lebanon Says Israeli Airstrike Hits Target in East

This picture taken from a position in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, shows an Israeli flag (L) on a destroyed building, and a Lebanese flag (R) painted on a damaged building in the southern Lebanese village of Mais al-Jabal on November 25, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
This picture taken from a position in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, shows an Israeli flag (L) on a destroyed building, and a Lebanese flag (R) painted on a damaged building in the southern Lebanese village of Mais al-Jabal on November 25, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
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Lebanon Says Israeli Airstrike Hits Target in East

This picture taken from a position in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, shows an Israeli flag (L) on a destroyed building, and a Lebanese flag (R) painted on a damaged building in the southern Lebanese village of Mais al-Jabal on November 25, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
This picture taken from a position in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, shows an Israeli flag (L) on a destroyed building, and a Lebanese flag (R) painted on a damaged building in the southern Lebanese village of Mais al-Jabal on November 25, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)

Lebanon's state media said an Israeli airstrike targeted the Baalbek region in the east of the country on Wednesday, branding it a "violation" of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The truce went into effect on November 27 after more than a year of hostilities that began with the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Both sides have since accused the other of breaching the ceasefire.

Wednesday's strike near the town of Tarya did not result in casualties, the state-run National News Agency said, calling the attack the "first violation of the ceasefire agreement" in the Baalbek area, AFP reported.

A Lebanese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strike targeted "warehouses believed to belong to Hezbollah".

Hezbollah has for decades held sway in south Beirut, and the south and east of the country.

The war with Israel saw Hezbollah massively weakened but not crushed.

A committee made up of the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel and United Nations peacekeepers is tasked with monitoring the ceasefire and ensuring violations are identified and dealt with.

Lebanon has asked the parties -- particularly the United States and France -- to press Israel to speed up its withdrawal from the country's south under the terms of the deal.

As part of the truce, the Lebanese army and peacekeepers will deploy in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army pulls out over a period of 60 days, which are due to expire in January 2025.

The Israeli army said on Monday that it was continuing its "defensive activities" in the south "in accordance with the agreement".

It has yet to issue a statement on the reported strike in eastern Lebanon.



Palestinians Say Israeli Forces Kill Man in Jenin Refugee Camp

 Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
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Palestinians Say Israeli Forces Kill Man in Jenin Refugee Camp

 Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man inside the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday.

"A citizen... was killed by Israeli fire in the Jenin camp, and ambulance crews transported his body to Jenin Government Hospital," the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement, without specifying when he was killed.

Contacted by AFP, Israel's military said it was "checking" reports of the man's killing.

The director of Jenin's Government Hospital, Wissam Baker, identified the victim as Nasser al-Saadi, noting that "he arrived dead at the hospital after being shot in the thigh".

"It appears he bled heavily after being injured before an ambulance was called to transport him to the hospital," Baker told AFP.

The Palestinian Red Crescent had earlier announced that Israeli forces handed over the body of a 30-year-old from inside the Jenin refugee camp, which is adjacent to the city of Jenin.

Israeli forces have occupied and barred access to the Jenin refugee camp since January 2025, when they launched a wide-ranging operation aimed at uprooting Palestinian armed groups from the West Bank's densely populated refugee camps.

The operation has caused the displacement of nearly 40,000 people from the camps, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

At least 1,073 Palestinians, including several armed fighters, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the outbreak of the Gaza war following Hamas's attack on 7 October 2023, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Authority data.

On the other hand, official Israeli data shows at least 46 Israelis -- civilians and soldiers -- have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.


Israel Issues Expropriation Order for West Bank Religious Site

 Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
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Israel Issues Expropriation Order for West Bank Religious Site

 Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)
Israeli soldiers keep watch during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 23, 2026. (Reuters)

Israel has issued an expropriation order for land in the occupied West Bank near the site of a Biblical prophet's grave north of Jerusalem, an Israeli NGO reported Tuesday.

The site, known as Nabi Samuel, is believed in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim tradition to include the grave of the Biblical figure of prophet Samuel, and includes a mosque owned by Palestinian religious authorities, the Waqf.

"This marks the first time that the (Israeli) Civil Administration has expropriated a holy site owned by the Muslim Waqf in the occupied West Bank," Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a statement.

According to the Israeli order, dated May 9 but published this week, the area for expropriation will include 109.79 dunams (roughly 11 hectares), including access roads, agricultural land, and a mosque.

The order says the decision was made "for the development and preservation of the archaeological site of the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel".

A source in COGAT, the Israel defense ministry body in charge of civilian matters in the Palestinian territories, said the decision was made "following the refusal of Waqf officials to cooperate with the procedures required for the renovation of the tomb compound".

The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs issued a "strong condemnation" of the expropriation order for Nabi Samuel.

"This confiscation is part of a policy aimed at suffocating the mosque and completely isolating it from its Palestinian surroundings, turning it into a Jewish archaeological site by force of arms," the ministry said in a statement.

Peace Now's Yonatan Mizrahi pointed out that Israeli authorities had already taken over administration of much of the land by converting it into an Israeli national park in the 1990s, decades after demolishing a Palestinian village on the site.

"There was no need to decide about the expropriation of the land," Mizrahi told AFP, while Peace Now denounced "the messianic agenda of the Israeli government".

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

In 2025, Israel expropriated an area in the center of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, arguing the order concerned an open area intended for roofing works and not a religious structure.


Remnants of Assad's Chemical Weapons Program Recovered, Syrian Official Says

FILE PHOTO: A member of the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands guard near an image of Syria's Bashar al-Assad at the fourth division headquarters in Damascus, Syria, January 23, 2025 REUTERS/Yamam Al Shaar/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A member of the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands guard near an image of Syria's Bashar al-Assad at the fourth division headquarters in Damascus, Syria, January 23, 2025 REUTERS/Yamam Al Shaar/File Photo
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Remnants of Assad's Chemical Weapons Program Recovered, Syrian Official Says

FILE PHOTO: A member of the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands guard near an image of Syria's Bashar al-Assad at the fourth division headquarters in Damascus, Syria, January 23, 2025 REUTERS/Yamam Al Shaar/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A member of the former rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands guard near an image of Syria's Bashar al-Assad at the fourth division headquarters in Damascus, Syria, January 23, 2025 REUTERS/Yamam Al Shaar/File Photo

Syria's transitional leadership has located remnants of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's clandestine chemical weapons program, including raw materials and munitions similar to those used to carry out deadly gas attacks during the country's long-running civil war, a Syrian official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Syrian authorities have also taken into custody 18 suspects for alleged involvement in Assad's chemical weapons program, including high-level military, political and technical officials, said Mohamad Katoub, Syria's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, in an interview.