Jana Choukeir

Israel carried out attacks on the Mazzeh suburb of Damascus on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA said, a day after a wave of deadly strikes on what Israel said were militant targets in the Syrian capital.

Israel's military said on Thursday it shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared in public on Friday for the first time since Iran's missile attack on Israel, describing it as legitimate punishment for what he called Israeli crimes and calling for more anti-Israel struggle.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that intense fighting with Hezbollah was taking place in southern Lebanon, spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on X.

Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah group in Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people and wounded 6,000 in the past two weeks, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday that its leader in Lebanon Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with some of his family members in an Israeli strike in the south of the country.

The death toll from exploding pagers in Lebanon rose to 12 including two children, Lebanese health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday.

Israel has tracked down and assassinated Iran-backed Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon and leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza amid a sharp escalation in the nearly one- year-old conflicts with its arch-enemies.

A Turkish drone strike killed one member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and wounded two others as they were holding a meeting in a refugee camp in northern Iraq on Monday, the region's counter-terrorism service said.

Egypt's army chief of staff Lieutenant General Ahmed Fathy Khalifa made a surprise visit to the country's border with the Gaza Strip to inspect the security situation, state television reported on Thursday, citing the army's spokesperson.