Lebanon

BEIRUT, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Hezbollah and Israel traded rocket and missile fire in areas near the Lebanese-Israeli border on Saturday, officials on both sides said, in the latest flare-up of violence which the United States worries will cause conflict to spiral in the Middle East.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone near the border in the early hours of Saturday. Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile fired at an Israeli drone. Reuters could not verify either statement.

BEIRUT, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese experts on Thursday highlighted the challenges posed by the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the necessity of finding a suitable resolution to address them.

Ziad Sayegh, an expert in refugee and immigration affairs and executive director of Civic Influence Hub, a non-governmental organization, said the first step that the Lebanese government must take is to collect data and know the precise number of Syrian refugees, a move that he says would give a clearer idea of the real situation on the ground.

BEIRUT, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon filed on Tuesday a complaint to the UN Security Council (UNSC) against Israel for launching attacks on journalists, said Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.

"Israel's deliberate and direct bombing of the journalists' convoy is a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime," Bou Habib said in a statement carried by the National News Agency (NNA).

On Monday, two Israeli strikes targeted a team of journalists from several media outlets covering field developments in the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun.

BEIRUT, Nov 15 (NNN-NNA) – Lebanese Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri, yesterday, warned of an expansion of Israel-Hamas conflict, amid the ongoing clashes between the Israeli army and Lebanese militants in southern Lebanon.

BEIRUT, Nov 11 (Reuters) - The head of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah said on Saturday that his armed group had used new types of weapons and struck new targets in Israel in recent days, and pledged that the front in the south against its sworn enemy would remain active.

It was Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's second speech since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October. In his first address earlier this month he said there was a possibility of fighting on the Lebanese front turning into a full-fledged war.

BEIRUT, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A Hezbollah lawmaker said on Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group would respond "double" to any Israeli attacks on civilians after a strike that killed three children and their grandmother in south Lebanon.

The remarks reflect the volatile situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where deadly clashes between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters are fuelling fears of a wider regional war while Israel invades the Gaza Strip.

BEIRUT, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Gaza Strip has lost at least 61 percent of its employment, equivalent to some 182,000 jobs, since the start of the current Israel-Hamas conflict, said a report released by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Monday.

The conflict in Gaza also caused a loss of 24 percent of employment in the West Bank, equivalent to 208,000 jobs.

"The total estimated 390,000 job losses in the two areas ... translate into losses of 16 million U.S. dollars in daily labor income," the report said.

BEIRUT (AP) — Four civilians, three of them children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon Sunday evening, a local civil defense official and Lebanese state-run media said.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, that one Israeli was also killed Sunday in a strike launched by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. He did not specify whether the person was a civilian or a soldier.

BEIRUT, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah said it carried out simultaneous attacks on Israeli positions at the Lebanese border on Saturday, as residents of south Lebanon reported some of the fiercest Israeli strikes yet during weeks of cross-border clashes.

The Israeli army said its warplanes had struck Hezbollah targets in response to an earlier attack from Lebanese territory, and was accompanying the air strikes with artillery and tank shelling.

BEIRUT, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah warned the United States on Friday that preventing a regional war depended on stopping the Israeli attack on Gaza, and there was a realistic possibility of fighting on the Lebanese front turning into a "wide war".

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his first speech since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, also threatened Israel's main ally the United States, hinting his Iran-backed group was ready to confront U.S. warships in the Mediterranean.