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Israel Says Targeting Hezbollah in Beirut as South Lebanon Struck

Debris cover the site of Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV headquarters after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP)
Debris cover the site of Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV headquarters after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP)
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Israel Says Targeting Hezbollah in Beirut as South Lebanon Struck

Debris cover the site of Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV headquarters after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP)
Debris cover the site of Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV headquarters after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP)

The Israeli military said it launched a wave of strikes on Beirut claiming to target the Iran-backed group Hezbollah early Saturday, while Lebanese state media reported strikes in the country's south.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel has since launched strikes across Lebanon and sent ground troops into the country's south.

In a brief statement on Saturday, the Israeli military said its forces were "currently striking Hezbollah terrorist organization targets in Beirut".

A military spokesman earlier issued a warning to residents of Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, to evacuate ahead of strikes.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported strikes on two neighborhoods in the area, without immediately saying what had been hit or whether there were any casualties.

In southern Lebanon, close to the border, the NNA said an Israeli airstrike hit a house in the town of Ghandouriyeh, killing at least one person and wounding two others.

The agency reported more strikes overnight and in the early morning on several areas of southern Lebanon, as well as an "extensive combing operation" carried out by Israeli troops in the area of Khiam town.

Hezbollah also said its fighters had targeted Israeli troops in six villages in southern Lebanon.

The group said it had also launched rockets across the border, where air raid sirens were activated, according to the Israeli military's Home Front Command.

The US ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa, gave his backing on Friday to a truce initiative proposed by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, telling reporters that "matters are not resolved without talking".

He said, however, he believed Israel "has decided not to stop" striking Lebanon yet.

"That means Lebanon has to decide whether it can meet the Israelis in this case," the ambassador added.

Lebanon's health ministry says the war has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced more than one million more.

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon, according to the military.

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Arab World

UN Expert Says Israel Using ‘Systematic’ Torture

UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese gestures as she speaks during a public event hosted by the Olof Palme International Center in Belgrade on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese gestures as she speaks during a public event hosted by the Olof Palme International Center in Belgrade on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
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UN Expert Says Israel Using ‘Systematic’ Torture

UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese gestures as she speaks during a public event hosted by the Olof Palme International Center in Belgrade on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese gestures as she speaks during a public event hosted by the Olof Palme International Center in Belgrade on March 17, 2026. (AFP)

A UN expert claimed Israel was systematically torturing Palestinians on a scale "that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent", in a report released to media on Friday.

Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said that since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which triggered the Gaza war, Palestinians in custody "have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse".

AFP has sought a comment from Israel's mission in Geneva, which has previously accused Albanese of being motivated by an "obsessive, hate-driven agenda to delegitimize the state of Israel".

Albanese has faced harsh criticism, allegations of anti-Semitism and demands for her removal, from Israel and some of its allies, over her relentless criticism and long-standing accusations of "genocide".

Last month, France and Germany called for her to resign following her remarks to a forum in Doha. Albanese said they had done so based on "false accusations" and a "manipulation" of what she had actually said.

Though appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, special rapporteurs are independent experts and do not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.

- 'Unprecedented scale' -

A statement accompanying her new report said that while Albanese "unequivocally condemns torture and other forms of ill-treatment committed by all actors, including Palestinian armed groups", this report "focuses on Israeli conduct".

Entitled "Torture and genocide", the report "examines Israel's systematic use of torture against Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023".

It claimed that "torture in detention has been used on an unprecedented scale as punitive collective vengeance".

"Brutal beatings, sexual violence, rape, lethal mistreatment, starvation, and the systematic deprivation of the most basic human conditions have inflicted profound and lasting scars on the bodies and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians and their loved ones," the report said.

"Torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering," it said.

Israel is party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Albanese said she had gathered written submissions, including over 300 testimonies.

- 'Widespread humiliation' -

Albanese said that since October 2023, arrests of Palestinians in the occupied territories had "escalated dramatically", with more than 18,500 people arrested, including at least 1,500 children.

The report said around 9,000 Palestinians were still in detention, while "more than 4,000 have been subjected to enforced disappearance".

Albanese said Israel's detention system "has descended into a regime of systemic and widespread humiliation, coercion, and terror".

She said Israel should "immediately cease all acts of torture and ill-treatment of the Palestinian people as part of its ongoing genocide" and urged all countries "to do everything in their power to stop the destruction of what remains of Palestine" as every delay "worsens irreversible harm and further entrenches a system of cruelty".

Albanese urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to request arrest warrants for Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

She is due to present her report to the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

Arab World

Trump’s Peace Board Hands Hamas Disarmament Proposal, Sources Say

Displaced Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayers amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 20 March 2026. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayers amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 20 March 2026. (EPA)
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Trump’s Peace Board Hands Hamas Disarmament Proposal, Sources Say

Displaced Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayers amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 20 March 2026. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinians attend Eid al-Fitr prayers amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 20 March 2026. (EPA)

Donald Trump's Board of Peace has presented Hamas with a written proposal on how it could lay down its weapons, two sources said, a step the Palestinian movement has thus far refused to take as the US president pushes on with his plan for Gaza's future.

The proposal, first reported by NPR, was submitted to Hamas during meetings in Cairo over the past week, one of the sources said.

The talks were attended by Nickolay Mladenov and Aryeh Lightstone, the two sources familiar with the matter said.

Mladenov is the Trump-appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza. Lightstone is a US aide to Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Trump's Gaza plan, to which ‌Israel and ‌Hamas agreed in October, sees Israeli troops withdrawing from Gaza and reconstruction starting ‌as ⁠Hamas lays down ⁠its weapons.

Mladenov on Thursday said that serious efforts were underway to bring relief to war-torn Gaza, with a framework agreed by the mediators that could advance reconstruction in the enclave, much of which lies in ruins.

"It is now on the table. It requires one clear choice: full decommissioning by Hamas and every armed group, with no exceptions and no carve-outs. In this season of hope, may those responsible make the right choice for the Palestinian people," Mladenov said on X in a ⁠post for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.

Representatives of Hamas were not immediately ‌available for comment on Saturday, the second day of ‌the holiday. Talks on disarmament had been placed on hold at the start of the US-Israeli war on ‌Iran which began on February 28.

AMNESTY OFFER MAY BE ON THE TABLE

US officials have ‌said that Iran-backed Hamas could be offered amnesty in any deal under which they agree to lay down any heavy weaponry and light arms including rifles.

Sources close to Hamas say the group would likely refuse to give up their rifles for fear of attacks by rival militias in Gaza, some of which have ‌backing from Israel. Hamas and its rivals have staged deadly attacks on one another since the October ceasefire.

One of the sources said much ⁠would depend on ⁠what is acceptable to Israel, which demands the group’s complete disarmament.

Some of Hamas' prominent officials have outright rejected any disarmament over the past few months.

Israel has shown no sign of withdrawing its troops who are in control of around half of Gaza's territory, with Hamas keeping a firm grip on the other half of the enclave and its two million population, most of which has been rendered homeless by two years of devastating war.

The source said that amnesty and targeted investments in Gaza were being offered as incentives for Hamas, but said that it was unclear whether the Board of Peace would have funds to pay for it.

Arab World

Drone Attack Against Iraqi Intelligence Services in Baghdad

Security personnel stand guard during a funeral procession for members of Iraq's PMF, who were killed in an attack in al-Qaim province near the Syria border the previous evening, in Baghdad on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
Security personnel stand guard during a funeral procession for members of Iraq's PMF, who were killed in an attack in al-Qaim province near the Syria border the previous evening, in Baghdad on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
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Drone Attack Against Iraqi Intelligence Services in Baghdad

Security personnel stand guard during a funeral procession for members of Iraq's PMF, who were killed in an attack in al-Qaim province near the Syria border the previous evening, in Baghdad on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
Security personnel stand guard during a funeral procession for members of Iraq's PMF, who were killed in an attack in al-Qaim province near the Syria border the previous evening, in Baghdad on March 17, 2026. (AFP)

A drone attack targeted Iraqi intelligence services in an upscale residential neighborhood in central Baghdad on Saturday morning, a senior security official said.

"A drone targeted the headquarters of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service in the Mansour district" at around 10:00 am local time (0700 GMT), General Saad Maan, head of the Iraqi government's security media unit, said in a brief statement.

An Iraqi security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier the attack targeted a "telecommunications building" with the National Intelligence Service, which cooperates with US advisors in Iraq as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.

Another drone, filming the operation, crashed into a private members sports club popular with Iraqi elite and foreign diplomats, according to the same source.

Iraq has been unwillingly drawn into the regional conflict triggered by the US-Israel attack on its neighbor Iran on February 28.

Strikes have targeted Iran-backed groups, which in turn have claimed near-daily attacks on US interests, mostly in Iraq but also across the wider region.

A fighter from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) was killed late Friday in a strike on a military airfield in northern Iraq. The group blamed the attack on the US and Israel.

On Thursday, the Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that combat helicopters had carried out strikes against pro-Iran armed groups in Iraq during the latest conflict.

Overnight from Friday to Saturday, at least three drone attacks targeted a US diplomatic and logistics hub that houses US military personnel at Baghdad International Airport, according to two security officials.

One of the officials said that a fire broke out near the base following the third attack.