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Lebanon Registers Record Number of Daily COVID-19 Cases

A man inspects the damage of the blast that tore through Lebanon's capital. (AFP)
A man inspects the damage of the blast that tore through Lebanon's capital. (AFP)
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Lebanon Registers Record Number of Daily COVID-19 Cases

A man inspects the damage of the blast that tore through Lebanon's capital. (AFP)
A man inspects the damage of the blast that tore through Lebanon's capital. (AFP)

Lebanon on Tuesday announced a record daily number of over 300 COVID-19 infections and seven deaths from the virus as the country grapples with the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion that rocked the capital and overwhelmed hospitals.

The country's tally now stands at 7,121 COVID-19 cases and 87 deaths since February, according to health ministry data. Even before the blast there had been a recent surge in infections.

The Aug. 4 explosion killed at least 171 people, injured some 6,000 and damaged swathes of the capital, leaving some 300,000 without habitable housing. Hospitals, many of which were damaged and their staff injured, were flooded with wounded.

World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jarasevic told a United Nations briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that the displacement of so many people risks accelerating the spread of COVID-19.

The WHO on Aug. 7 issued an appeal for $15 million to cover emergency health needs in Lebanon, where the healthcare sector had already been strained by shortages of medical supplies and medicine due to a deep financial crisis.

"The emergency in Beirut has caused many COVID-19 precautionary measures to be relaxed, raising the prospects of even higher transmission rates and a large caseload in coming weeks," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an Aug. 10 report.

It said at least 15 medical facilities, including three major hospitals, sustained partial or heavy structural damage from the blast. An assessment of 55 primary healthcare centers in Beirut showed only 47% could still provide full routine services.

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Arab World

Israeli Strikes Pound South, East Lebanon

Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)
Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Pound South, East Lebanon

Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)
Plumes of smoke billow from southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjeyoun, Lebanon May 24, 2026. (Reuters)

Israeli strikes hit south and east Lebanon on Sunday, state media reported, a day after 11 people were killed in a single raid on the south despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Saturday's strike in Sir al-Gharbiyeh "resulted in a massacre whose final toll is 11 dead including a child and six women, and nine wounded including four children and a woman," Lebanon's health ministry said in a statement.

Israel's military has continued to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire that began on April 17 and that was recently extended for several weeks.

The Iran-backed group has also maintained attacks on Israeli targets in southern Lebanon and across the border, including firing rockets on Sunday at Israeli troops operating on Lebanese territory.

Lebanon's official National News Agency reported Israeli strikes on multiple locations in south and east Lebanon on Sunday, in some cases causing casualties.

Some of the raids came before the Israeli military issued two evacuation warnings covering more than a dozen villages in Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa valley.

An AFP correspondent saw large clouds of smoke rising after strikes on the south's Nabatieh and Zawtar al-Sharqiyah.

Lebanon's civil defense agency said early on Sunday that its regional facility in Nabatieh had been destroyed by an overnight Israeli strike.

An AFP photographer saw civil defense personnel recovering equipment and using a stretcher to remove oxygen bottles from the rubble.

The Israeli army did not immediately provide any comment on the strike in response to an inquiry from AFP's Jerusalem bureau.

- Iran -

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, whom the US sanctioned this week, said Sunday that "major transformations are taking place in the region", amid anticipation that a US-Iranian agreement to end the Middle East war was close.

Iran "has made its agreement with the United States conditional on stopping the war in Lebanon", he said, according to a statement.

On Saturday, Hezbollah said its chief Naim Qassem had received a message from Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, saying Iran's latest proposal through Pakistani mediators emphasized "the demand to include Lebanon" in the broader ceasefire.

Fadlallah said that "the war will not just stop in Iran, but across the whole region, particularly in Lebanon", urging Lebanese authorities to "take advantage of this regional umbrella... which will have repercussions on us".

Lebanese authorities recently began landmark direct talks with Israel under US auspices, and have insisted the discussions must be independent from the Iran-US negotiations.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.

Under the terms of the ceasefire published by Washington, Israel reserves the right to act against "planned, imminent or ongoing attacks".

Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon are also operating inside an Israeli-occupied "yellow line" running around 10 kilometers (six miles) deep along Lebanon's southern border.

Arab World

Gaza Hospital Says Child among Three Killed in Israeli Strike

Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Gaza Hospital Says Child among Three Killed in Israeli Strike

Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Residents inspect the rubble of a building that belongs to the Palestinian family of Abu Saif and was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A pre-dawn Israeli airstrike killed three members of a Palestinian family, including a one-year-old child, in central Gaza on Sunday, a hospital said.

Gaza remains gripped with daily violence despite a formal ceasefire in place since October, with both the Israeli military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce, says AFP.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah said it had received the bodies of a couple and their infant after an Israeli strike hit a residential apartment in the Al-Nuseirat camp before dawn.

The hospital said around 10 people were wounded.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the three deaths, though it said it had struck three Hamas weapons storage facilities in central Gaza over the preceding 24 hours.

A ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October, but Israel reserves the right to strike targets it deems a threat.

At least 890 Palestinians have been killed since the October 10 ceasefire, according to Gaza's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

The Israeli military says five of its soldiers have also been hit during the same period.

Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.

Arab World

Iraq’s Nujaba Movement Warns against ‘US Plot’ to Integrate PMF in New Security Ministry

Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)
Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)
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Iraq’s Nujaba Movement Warns against ‘US Plot’ to Integrate PMF in New Security Ministry

Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)
Slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei (R) and Nujaba Movement leader Akram al-Kaabi in Tehran in December 2018. (Supreme leader’s website)

The Iran-aligned Nujaba Movement in Iraq warned on Saturday against an “American plot” to merge the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in state institutions, presenting new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi with his first test in imposing state monopoly over arms.

It made its warning in wake of a visit to Iraq earlier this week by former US Central Command Commander David Petraeus, who also previously led US forces stationed in Iraq.

The new Iraqi government appears to be a taking a tougher stance against the Iran-aligned armed factions in the country in wake of attacks launched from Iraq against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have said the attacks were launched from Iraqi territory. Zaidi has slammed the attacks as “criminal acts”.

Spokesperson for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces Sabah al-Numan said the committee probing the attacks will cooperate with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to uncover the perpetrators.

“The official statements are not up for debate: the security of our brothers is a read line and there can be no replacing the rule of law,” he said in statements carried by the official state news agency INA.

Any party found responsible for the attacks will face judicial and military measures, he vowed, adding that the attacks were a “threat to Iraq’s national security and flagrant violation of its sovereignty”.

On the state monopoly over arms, al-Numan said the decision “is not a mere political slogan, but a security strategy that must be implemented.”

“The success of the government will be measured by how much it establishes itself as the sole party that holds power over weapons,” he stressed.

Prominent armed factions, such as the Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, have not made any statements over the recent developments.

The Nujaba Movement, however, has openly defied the state’s decision to impose monopoly over weapons.

The party, which is seen as the most hardline, has also rejected attempts to restructure the PMF.

Deputy head of the movement’s executive council Hussein al-Saeedi said: “The resistance’s weapons are not open to compromise.”

“Stripping the factions of their weapons will leave society exposed to the ongoing threats,” he declared from Basra.

He also slammed as an “American plot” the alleged plan to merge the PMF with the federal police and other forces as part of a new “federal security ministry”.

He said such efforts are “futile” and “impossible to execute”, warning that insisting on forging ahead with the plan will have “political and popular implications.”