Antoine Khoury

Eleven people were killed Friday in an explosion of unknown origin at a military site in the Ayyash area, west of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, the country's Defense Ministry announced Saturday.

Syria's judiciary issued its first verdicts on Thursday in the trial over massacres of Alawites on the Syrian coast last year, sentencing a member of government forces to 20 years in prison, while two supporters of the deposed government received a death sentence and a life sentence, respectively.

Lebanese MP Nadim Gemayel of the Kataeb party said that his party does not oppose Lebanon making peace with neighboring Israel, which still occupies more than 600 square kilometers of Lebanese territory and has razed dozens of border villages in its war against Hezbollah.

Lebanese politician Dory Chamoun died on Monday at the age of 94. His easygoing manner and plain, straightforward way of speaking might almost have marked him as an outsider on Lebanon's political scene, born and raised as he was in the shadow of a father who dominated the country's contemporary history for decades with his imposing stature.

Ali al-Taher, the strategic ridge overlooking Nabatieh, was the site of a fresh Israeli military operation Thursday evening, with the army saying it destroyed "more than two kilometers of Hezbollah underground infrastructure" beneath the height, located north of the Litani River, roughly 15 kilometers from the Israeli border.

The presentation of credentials by a fresh wave of ambassadors to Syria's transitional president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has drawn a notably warm response from the Syrian Liberal Party, whose statement this week reads less like routine diplomatic courtesy and more like a manifesto for what post-war Syria could become.

US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack called Saturday for restraint in the southern province of Sweida, a Druze-majority region, following tensions between local figures.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the release of five Lebanese nationals held by Israel, after being abducted from southern Lebanon during the successive wars since 2023.

Jordan's King Abdullah II has expressed his "full support" for the international conference backing Lebanon's armed forces and Internal Security Forces (ISF), for which a preparatory meeting is set to take place in Paris on September 17.

Denmark reopened its embassy in Damascus on Monday, Syria's official news agency SANA announced, the latest in a series of diplomatic reopenings following more than a decade of interrupted activities due to the civil war.

Lebanon's Civil Defence issued a statement Saturday warning against "the risks associated with swimming and all types of water activities and sports along the coastline, from Abdeh (Akkar, far north) to Naqoura in the south, today and tomorrow Sunday." 

A day after criticizing the stalled progress on Hezbollah's disarmament, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa continued his diplomatic push Thursday, visiting the Druze Community House in Beirut for talks with Sheikh Akl Sami Abi el-Mona.