BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel exchanged deadly cross-border fire on Sunday, with the group claiming responsibility for strikes that killed a civilian, according to Israeli sources.

The exchanges — and a rocket that hit a UN peacekeeping base — have further raised tensions on Israel’s northern border.

The Israeli army closed the border area to civilians as tit-for-tat fire with Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions in Lebanon intensified.

LONDON: The archbishop of Canterbury on Sunday warned of the “grave danger” facing patients in Gaza after a hospital was hit by an Israeli rocket.

Justin Welby, the most senior cleric in the Church of England, took to X after the Ahli Hospital, which is run by Anglicans, was damaged overnight.

Over a million Palestinians are currently faced with a stark choice of remaining in place or heading south after the Israel Defense Forces warned residents in the north of the Gaza Strip to evacuate.

RIYADH: President Joe Biden on Saturday spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging the leaders to allow humanitarian aid to the region and affirmed his support for efforts to protect civilians.

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes targeted the airport of Syria’s government-held city of Aleppo injuring five people on Saturday, a war monitor said, days after a similar strike hit Aleppo and Damascus airports.
Syria’s defense ministry also confirmed the strikes after midnight on Sunday, saying the airport has been rendered temporarily out of service.

DUBAI: Demand for food is fast outstripping production capacity in many parts of the world, raising the specter of shortage and hunger as overfarming of mineral-rich soils leads to land degradation and exhaustion of finite freshwater sources.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), water is being referred to as the “new blue gold” as rivers and natural aquifers get rapidly depleted amid a warming climate and overexploitation of reserves, depriving farmers of the means to irrigate their crops and hydrate their livestock.