Lebanon | Pakistan

• Ceasefire talks loom as Lebanese death toll in war nears 1,900 • Air raid sirens wail across northern Israel amid fresh rocket barrage • UN warns of looming food crisis as conflict sends prices soaring BEIRUT: An Israeli stri­ke on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh killed at least 13 State Security personnel on Friday, a source from the government agency said, as fierce cross-border fighting raged despite plans for ceasefire talks between the two countries. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said “enemy warplanes laun­ched a series of heavy strikes” on Nabatiyeh. One of the strikes hit the State Security office in the vicinity of the government complex. An AFP photographer at the site saw extensive damage and a fire still burning hours later. The attack comes as the Lebanese government prepares for negotiations with Israel next week to end a war that has killed nearly 1,900 people in Lebanon since it began in early March. Lebanon’s presidency said on Friday that a meeting would be held with Isra...

• Vows to support US, Iran in reaching a peaceful settlement • PM, army chief review mediation efforts, arrangements for talks • Israeli strikes in Lebanon threaten to derail negotiations • Iran says it was ready to retaliate before Pakistan intervened • Warns continued attacks could make talks ‘meaningless’ ISLAMABAD: Field Marshal Asim Munir calls on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.—APP ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday vowed to support Iran and the United States in reaching a peaceful settlement as Israeli strikes in Lebanon continued to weigh on the prospects of the upcoming dialogue, with Islamabad stepping up diplomatic engagement to keep a two-week ceasefire between Tehran and Washington from collapsing. The commitment came during a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir, where they reviewed the progress of Pakistan’s mediatory efforts and finalised arrangements for the talks. “They expressed satisfaction over the de-escala...

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had ordered his ministers to begin direct talks with Lebanon, pushing for Hezbollah’s disarmament amid mounting concern that its ongoing strikes could cause the fragile US-Iran truce to unravel. A Lebanese government official told AFP shortly after Netanyahu’s announcement that Beirut “wants a ceasefire” declared before starting any negotiations with Israel, a day after deadly strikes across the country. At least 300 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the bombardment on Wednesday, the Lebanese health ministry said, while Hezbollah said it was engaged in close-quarters combat against Israeli forces on the ground on Thursday in the south Lebanon town of Bint Jbeil. Netanyahu’s order for direct negotiations with Lebanon’s government was focused on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peace, according to a statement from his office, but he offered no immediate respite from the bombardment. “Lebanon wants a ceasefire before starting nego...

The world was relieved on Wednesday when Pakistan mounted an overnight diplomatic push to secure a temporary ceasefire and bring Washington and Tehran into direct negotiations. Things, however, were different for Lebanon. Israel launched its heaviest and most coordinated air assault on Lebanon since its conflict with Hezbollah began on March 2 amid the Middle East war hours after the US-Iran truce, killing more than 250 people. The assault proceeded even as the Hezbollah paused its own attacks, abiding by what sources close to the group said it understood to be an inclusive truce. On the other hand, Israel and the US insisted that Lebanon was not part of the temporary ceasefire. But Iranian officials rejected that interpretation, saying partial ceasefires were unacceptable and warning of a “decisive response” if violations continued. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now said he has instructed Israel to begin peace talks with Lebanon that would also include the disarmament of Hezbollah. Lebanese P...

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held a phone call with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, in which he sought Pakistan’s support for bringing an immediate end to Israeli attacks on his country, according to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The statement said that during the call, PM Shehbaz strongly condemned Israel’s ongoing aggression against Lebanon and expressed condolences over the loss of thousands of precious lives in these hostilities. “The prime minister said that Pakistan was engaged in sincere efforts for regional peace and it was in this spirit that the peace talks between Iran and the US were being convened,” it said. “While thanking PM Shehbaz for his peace efforts, the prime minister of Lebanon sought Pakistan’s support for bringing an immediate end to the attacks targeting Lebanon and its people,” the statement said, adding that both leaders agreed to remain in contact. PM Shehbaz also posted on X about the phone call, saying, “Grateful to Prime Minister Nawaf Salam who expressed...

Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, even as the Iran-aligned group paused attacks on northern Israel and Israeli troops in Lebanon under a two-week US-Iran ceasefire. Consecutive explosions shook Beirut, sending smoke billowing across the capital, as Israel’s military said it had launched the largest coordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, it said. The strikes killed 182 people and wounded 890 across the country, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has declared Thursday a national day of mourning after Israeli strikes shook the country. In Beirut, Reuters reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up wounded and transporting them to hospitals because there were not enough ambulances to get them in time. A group of firefighters worked to put out flames in a car park after one strike left more tha...

• UN official says Israeli forces destroy 17 surveillance cameras linked agency’s office in Naqura • Indonesia receives bodies of three peacekeepers slain by Israel BEIRUT: Israel’s military renewed its strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Saturday, severely damaging buildings and a major hospital, as international tensions escalated over the safety of United Nations peacekeepers caught in the crossfire. As Indonesia received the bodies of three of its UN peacekeepers killed while deployed in Lebanon, a UN security official told AFP that Israeli forces destroyed 17 surveillance cameras linked to the UNIFIL main headquarters in Naqura. The bodies of the three Indonesian men arrived in Jakarta on Saturday. Their flag-draped coffins were carried into an airport hall on the shoulders of uniformed comrades for a ceremony attended by President Prabowo Subianto. Family members wept over the coffins, each fronted by a photograph of the dead soldier in a gold frame. The fatalities occurred in two separate ...

An Israeli strike killed three journalists on Saturday in south Lebanon, with authorities denouncing the attack as a “war crime”. Lebanese television news channel Al Manar said its reporter Ali Shoaib and reporter Fatima Ftouni, from Lebanese pan-Arab broadcaster Al Mayadeen, were killed when their vehicle was hit. Lebanon’s information minister, Paul Morcis, later said Ftouni’s brother, Mohammed, a cameraman, had also been killed. Al Mayadeen said that the Israeli airstrike “directly struck a vehicle clearly marked as a press car in which she and fellow journalists were travelling”. It added that Shoaib and Ftouni’s brother were also in the vehicle. “According to Al Mayadeen’s correspondent Jamal Ghourabi, Israel targeted Fatima’s vehicle with four precision missiles. After that, when ambulances arrived on the scene, paramedics were then targeted, leading to the martyrdom of one paramedic, reflecting an obvious attempt to assassinate press crews and even paramedics attempting to reach them,” the report said....

Israel should extend its border with Lebanon up to the Litani River deep inside the country’s south, Israel’s finance minister said ​on Monday as Israeli troops bombed bridges and destroyed homes in the area in an escalating military assault. The comments by Finance Minister ‌Bezalel Smotrich were the most explicit yet by a senior Israeli official on seizing Lebanese territory in a fight that Israel claims targets Hezbollah. Lebanon was pulled into the regional war on March 2 when Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel. Since then, Israel has ordered all residents to leave the area south of the Litani River as it pummels the area with air strikes, ​terming it a Hezbollah stronghold. Lebanese authorities say the Israeli air and ground assault has killed more than 1,000 people, and more than a ​million have been driven from their homes, with Israel having ordered residents to flee swathes of the country. ‘The new Israeli border must be the Litani’ Smotrich told an Israeli radio programme that the military campaig...

• IDF ordered to destroy all bridges over Litani River • Key Qasmiyeh bridge near Tyre damaged in strikes • Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemns attacks, calling them a ‘prelude to a ground invasion’ BEIRUT: The Israeli military on Sunday announced it was expanding its ground campaign in Lebanon, warning of a lengthy operation, after Beirut condemned what it called Israel’s flagrant violations of Lebanese sovereignty. Israel struck a main bridge linking Lebanon’s south to the rest of the country on Sunday after ordering its military to destroy all crossings over the Litani River and to step up the demolition of homes near the southern border. The destruction of bridges and homes marks a significant escalation in Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon. International law generally prohibits militaries from attacking civilian infrastructure, and the United Nations human rights chief has criticised Israel’s actions in Lebanon, particularly its use of widespread evacuation orders that have displaced more than a ...

For Lebanese Muslims, there was little to celebrate on Friday during Eidul Fitr as a displacement crisis prompted by Israeli strikes and fears for the future cast a dark shadow over the end of Ramazan. Eid this year has been dampened by fallout from the war that began with the US and Israel launching strikes on Iran. With fighting going on between Hezbollah and Israel as well, Lebanon has also been dragged into the regional conflict. A displaced child from Beirut’s southern suburbs looks on from inside a van on the day worshippers attend Eid prayers to mark the end of Ramazan, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, in Beirut, Lebanon, March 20, 2026. — Reuters Israel’s strikes across Lebanon’s south, east and its capital Beirut have killed more than 1,000 people and the Israeli military’s evacuation orders have forced more than a million people to flee their homes. In downtown Beirut, displaced Lebanese tried to shield themselves from bouts of heavy rain on Frida...

Forced by yet another Israeli bombardment on Lebanon to flee his home for the second time in just two years, and mourning lost relatives and friends, Hassan Kiki said he feels much older than 16. “War has aged us… We have lived through what no one else has,” the tall teen from south Lebanon told AFP in Beirut. “I miss my school, my friends… I lost two cousins and two friends in a massacre in Shehabiyeh,” he added, referring to a deadly Israeli strike in his town that killed at least seven people on March 11. Kiki is among more than a million people Lebanese authorities have registered as displaced since the country was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2. On that day, Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel to avenge the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel, which never stopped bombing Lebanon despite a 2024 truce that sought to end the last fighting with Hezbollah, responded with widespread strikes, ground operations along the border, and an evacuation warning for swa...

A SITE in the Haret Hreik, a neighbourhood in southern Beirut which was struck by Israel.—AFP • Death toll for paramedics this month rises to 31 after clinic bombing • France offers to host negotiations in Paris; urges Israel to halt its offensive • First direct talks since conflict expected in coming days, Haaretz reports BEIRUT: An overnight Israeli strike on a healthcare centre in Borj Qalaouiya killed at least 12 Lebanese medical personnel, Lebanon’s state news agency said on Saturday, as diplomatic efforts intensified amid reports Israel and Lebanon may hold their first direct talks to de-escalate the war. The health ministry said the death toll was preliminary, with rescue operations underway to search for those still missing under the rubble and the Israeli attack killed doctors, paramedics, and nurses working at the facility. This strike brings the total number of paramedics killed in Lebanon since the start of hostilities to 31, a grim statistic highlighted by the ministry as it accused Israel of rep...

Pakistan on Tuesday called upon the international community to take “urgent” action against Israeli military aggression in Lebanon, the Foreign Office (FO) said. Lebanon was dragged into the US-Israeli war on Iran this month when Lebanese group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel, which responded with heavy bombardment across the country. A total of 486 people have been killed in the war so far and 1,313 injured, of which 259 are children, according to the World Health Organisation. In a statement, the FO condemned “Israel’s continued military aggression against Lebanon,” which it said has resulted in the “death of hundreds of civilians and the displacement of nearly half a million people”. FO maintained that Israeli actions were in “contravention of international law” and were “undermining the efforts of the government of Lebanon to ensure peace and stability in the country”. It held that Israel’s recent actions “have the potential to further exacerbate the ongoing security and humanitarian cri...

Members of the Lebanese Civil Defence extinguish a fire in a building after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.—Reuters • Lebanese parliament postpones legislative elections for two years • Lebanese president says Hezbollah risks state collapse, suggests full truce, direct talks BEIRUT: The Israeli onslaught in Leb­anon has displaced nearly 700,000 people, with reports of children among the casualties, as the conflict with the Leba­nese resistance group Hezbollah enters its second week, a UN agency said on Monday. “Mass displacement across Leb­­a­non has forced nearly 700,000 people including around 200,000 children from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” UNICEF Reg­ional Direc­tor Edouard Beigbeder said. “Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters.” Lebanon, a country of 6 million, has turned its largest sport...

• Stages rare helicopter raid deep into Bekaa Valley, killing 41 • UN, Ghana condemn ‘war crime’ attack that wounded three peacekeepers BEIRUT: Israel warned Lebanon it would pay a “very heavy price” if it fai­l­­ed to control the Hezbollah group on Saturday, as Israeli forces pounded the Beirut with airstrikes and mounted a deadly airborne raid in the country’s east. The warning came as the cross-border conflict, which dragged Lebanon into a wider Middle East war on Monday following Hezbollah’s retaliation after Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayat­ollah Ali Khamenei, escalated sharply. On Saturday morning, more buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut lay as mounds of smoking rubble and twisted metal, Reuters video showed, after heavy Israeli bombardment that followed an evacuation order for civilians. ‘A night of hell’ Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, addressing Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun in a statement, said that if the Lebanese government failed to enforce a 2024 agreement to disarm Hezb...

Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets in several areas of Lebanon on Friday, a day after the Lebanese army said it had completed the first phase of its plan to disarm the group. Under US pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming the resistance group, which was weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel, including two months of all-out war that ended with a November 2024 ceasefire. Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes in Lebanon, usually claiming it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives, and has maintained troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic, accusing the group of rearming. In a statement on Friday, the Israeli military said it struck “several areas in Lebanon”, targeting “weapons storage facilities and a weapons production site that were used for the rehabilitation and military build-up of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation”. “Additionally, several launch sites and rocket launchers, along with mi...

• Bombardment in Central Gaza, Rimal claims 21 lives • Drone attack on Lebanon leaves one dead, five hurt • Canadian PM, UAE president back comprehensive Palestinian peace plan • Hamas says ‘escalating violations’ place a responsibility on mediators and US CAIRO: Israel continued its deadly assault blatantly violating ceasefire agreements on two fronts with airstrikes on Saturday that killed at least 21 people in Gaza and one in southern Lebanon, despite assurances from Palestinian resistance groups that they remain fully committed to the accord. Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 21 people and wounded several others, local health authorities said, posing a further test to the six-week-old ceasefire. Witnesses and medics said the initial attack struck a car in the densely populated Rimal neighbourhood, setting it ablaze. It was not immediately clear whether the five dead were passengers in the vehicle or included passersby. Dozens of people rushed to extinguish the fire and rescue the victim...

• Hamas returns Israeli prisoner’s body; gets 15 Palestinians’ bodies in return • US coordinates Gaza aid flow but Israel maintains oversight, officials say JERUSALEM: Israeli forces continued to wage deadly assaults across the Palestinian territories and southern Lebanon on Saturday, in a series of air and artillery attacks that violated ceasefire agreements on both fronts. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead two 16-year-old boys, adding to the mounting number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces. The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah identified the victims as Mohammed Abdullah Moham­med Ateem and Muhammad Rashad Fadl Qasim, both from the village of Judeira. The ministry said Israeli forces were withholding the boys’ bodies. The Israeli military acknowledged the killings, referring to the teenagers as individuals it had “eliminated” — a term frequently employed by Israeli authorities to obscure civilian deaths and dehumanise Palestinians. At the same time, in the besieged St...

ISLAMABAD - Chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Chief Commissioner Islamabad, Muhammad Ali Randhawa, met with the Ambassador of Lebanon, H.