Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat has visited Lebanon for the first time in a decade following years of strained relations between the oil-rich kingdom and the tiny Mediterranean country.

French President Emmanuel Macron has met with Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun and vowed to support the small nation as it attempts to recover from the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war and an economic crisis.

Lebanon’s new president has asked prominent diplomat and jurist Nawaf Salam to form the country’s new government after Salam was named prime minister by a large number of legislators.

Intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government say they have thwarted a plan by the Islamic State group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab.

Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi rebel group in Yemen.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency says Israeli jets have launched an airstrike over a southern Lebanese border village, while troops shelled other border towns and villages still under Israeli control.

Hezbollah has fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months.

An international conference for Lebanon in Paris raised $1 billion in pledges for humanitarian aid and military support.

Officials say Israeli airstrikes have pounded areas across Lebanon, killing at least 27 people over the past 24 hours, including more than a dozen in a southern town where Israeli bombardments in previous conflicts are seared into local memory.

Lebanon' current premier says five-time former Prime Minister Salim Hoss has died at age 94.

The European Union has announced an aid package for Lebanon of 1 billion euros — about $1.06 billion — that will mostly go to strengthening border control to halt the flow of asylum seekers and migrants from the small, crisis-wracked country across the Mediterranean Sea to Cyprus and Italy.

Lebanon's billionaire caretaker prime minister has denied allegations of money laundering after a complaint was filed in France by two anti-corruption groups this week.

Three and a half years after hundreds of tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate ignited at the Beirut port, setting off one of the world’s biggest non-nuclear explosions, Lebanese and French officials have put forward a plan for reconstruction and reorganization of the port.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has told The Associated Press that his country could officially recognize a Palestinian state after a cease-fire in Gaza, without waiting for the outcome of what could be yearslong negotiations between Israeli and the Palestinians on a two-state solution.

France’s foreign minister is urging Lebanese leaders to work on reducing tensions along the border with Israel, warning that the raging Israel-Hamas war, now in its third month, could spread to other parts of the region.

Arab leaders who met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Jordan are pushing for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has visited troops deployed near the border with Israel, and Saudi Arabia is evacuating families of diplomatic staff because of clashes between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops.

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Monday it has started destroying surveillance cameras on several Israeli army posts along the border as tension rose following the Israel-Hamas war that began Oct.7.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister is warning that Syrian refugees could become a threat to the small Mediterranean nation’s delicate demographic and sectarian balance.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister has demanded an end to the volatile clashes in the country's largest Palestinian refugee camp, warning that troops may have to intervene if the deadly violence doesn't stop.

The Lebanese government’s last-minute decision to delay the start of daylight savings time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in mass confusion.

Lebanon will construct a $122 million terminal at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport to be operated by a leading Irish airport company when it’s completed in four years,.

President Michel Aoun has left Lebanon’s presidential palace, marking the end of his six-year term without a replacement.

Lebanon's parliament has approved amendments to a banking secrecy law, a key demand of the International Monetary Fund before agreeing to a bailout program.

France's foreign minister has urged Lebanon's political leadership to swiftly elect a new president and warned that a political vacuum could plunge the Mediterranean country into a deeper crisis.

Lebanon's parliament has failed to elect a president, just weeks before incumbent President Michel Aoun's six-year term comes to an end.

Lebanon is celebrating the victory of a female dance troupe from this crisis-hit Mideast country in the America's Got Talent competition show.

Lebanon's Hezbollah is airing drone footage of Israeli gas production barges in a disputed gas field in the Mediterranean Sea.

Lebanese lawmakers have voted to use a $150 million World Bank loan to import wheat for its cash-strapped country.

Lebanon's government says the ruin of a massive silo struck with a deadly blast at Beirut's port two years ago risks collapsing.

Lebanese security forces, accompanied by an investigative judge, have raided the country’s Central Bank in a divisive investigation against the bank’s embattled governor.

A Lebanese minister says the government hopes to start repatriating Syrian refugees within months.

President Joe Biden’s point man for global energy problems knows, he says, that transitioning away from the climate-wrecking pollution of fossil fuels is the only way to go.

Lebanese voted for a new parliament against the backdrop of an economic meltdown that is transforming the country and low expectations that the voting would significantly alter the political landscape.

Thousands of Lebanese living in nearly 50 countries began early voting in the country’s closely watched parliamentary elections, days after a similar vote was held in 10 predominantly Muslim nations.

Kuwait’s foreign minister says he has handed Lebanese officials a list of suggestions for confidence-building measures with oil-rich Gulf states after relations between the two sides deteriorated dramatically over the past months.

France’s president and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince held a joint phone call with Lebanon’s prime minister during Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the kingdom.

Lebanon’s information minister has resigned in a bid to ease an unprecedented, weekslong diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries.

Pope Francis says he's praying that God will help Lebanon “get up” and get back on its feet following an unprecedented economic crisis that has thrown three quarters of the country’s 6 million people including a million Syrian refugees into poverty.

Troops and patrols have deployed around Baghdad following the failed assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted Iraq’s prime minister in his residence.

A televised remark by a game show host-turned Cabinet minister in Lebanon about the war in Yemen has taken Lebanon's crisis with Saudi Arabia to new depths.

For eight months, a relatively obscure Lebanese judge has been quietly investigating one of the world’s worst non-nuclear explosions with only four assistants — and a lot of powerful detractors trying to block him.

A trove of leaked documents shows that for years, Lebanon’s politicians and bankers have stowed wealth in offshore tax havens and used it to buy expensive properties.

A global investigation has revealed how the rich and powerful have being hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century.

Jordan’s prime minister says that he discussed in Beirut ways to expedite the delivery of Egyptian natural gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria to help the small country with a grueling energy-crisis.

Lebanon’s president is asking the international community for assistance to help the country recover from one of the worst financial crises the world has seen in modern history.

A convoy of tanker trucks carrying Iranian diesel has arrived from Syria to Lebanon.

BEIRUT A Lebanese diplomat was appointed to form a new government in crisis-hit Lebanon on Monday after winning the backing of major political parties. Lebanon's president is holding consultations with heads of parliamentary blocs to designate a new prime minister for the crisis-stricken country, with a career diplomat poised to win the job Monday. Macron and other world leaders as well as the International Monetary Fund have refused to give assistance to Lebanon before its leaders enact major reforms. Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri emerged from his meeting with Aoun on Monday, telling reporters his 18-member bloc had given its backing to Adib. Adib, who has been Lebanons ambassador to Germany since 2013, served as an advisor to one of Lebanons former Prime Ministers, Najib Mikati.