UAE airport authorities cancelled or delayed dozens of flights and roads were flooded in major cities as the heaviest rainstorm in months lashed the desert nation yesterday.

Israel launched several strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon yesterday, Lebanese state media reported, as the Israeli military said “it targeted Hezbollah infrastructure including a military compound”.

The United Nations and aid groups warned on Wednesday that humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, particularly Gaza, were at risk of collapse if Israel does not lift impediments that include a “vague, arbitrary, and highly politicized” registration process.

Overnight clashes in Iran’s southern province of Kerman killed at least three security personnel and a civilian, state media reported yesterday.

Israel and Hamas have traded accusations that the other is delaying the second phase of the US-brokered peace plan in Gaza.

An Italian archaeological mission has discovered the remains of a sun temple belonging to an ancient Egyptian king near Cairo, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said on Friday.

Syria’s interior ministry said yesterday the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.

A series of Israeli strikes hit south and east Lebanon yesterday, state media reported, as Israel’s army said it was targeting Hezbollah sites, the latest such raids despite a year-old ceasefire.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa warned yesterday that Israel’s demand for a demilitarised zone in southern Syria would endanger his country, as Israeli forces continue to operate in the area.

The Lebanese army has arrested six people after gunmen attacked UN peacekeepers patrolling in the south of the country, the military said yesterday.

Key is a hidden network of underground command rooms

The Israeli military yesterday said it would soon strike what it described as Hezbollah military infrastructure in southern Lebanon and warned people in two villages to evacuate immediately.

Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives yesterday held their first direct talks in decades, part of a year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism in the war with militant group Hezbollah, a source close to the talks told AFP.

Iran and Turkey have agreed to begin constructing a new joint rail link to serve as a strategic gateway between Asia and Europe, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said yesterday.

A Turkish court yesterday acquitted four journalists, including AFP photographer Yasin Akgul, who were on trial over mass demonstrations in Istanbul in March, a case that drew condemnation from press freedom watchdogs.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi slammed what he called the United States’ “bullying approach” towards Venezuela, a statement said yesterday, as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on his Venezuelan arch-foe.

An explosion at a weapons depot in northwest Syria’s Idlib province killed five people and wounded nine others yesterday, security forces said in a statement.

The United States presented the warring Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with a strong text for a peace plan but neither side has accepted it, senior US envoy Massad Boulos said yesterday.

The UN human rights office said yesterday that at least 127 civilians had been killed in Lebanon in strikes by the Israel military since a ceasefire nearly a year ago, and called for an investigation and for the truce to be respected.

The strike targeted Iran-backed Hezbollah's acting chief of staff, Ali Tabtabai