For the world, 2024 was riven by conflict on two fronts.

A severely hobbled Hezbollah was in no position to help defend former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally, from the lightning-fast insurgency that toppled him.

O.J. Simpson’s “trial of the century” over the 1994 killings of his ex-wife and her friend bared divisions over race and law enforcement and brought an intersection of sports, crime, entertainment and class that was hard to turn away from.

A medical director in northern Gaza said Israeli drone strikes on have wounded three medical workers.

Long-displaced residents of south Lebanon have started returning to their homes after a ceasefire between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group took effect early Wednesday morning.

A ceasefire deal that could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has gone into effect.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem to succeed longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.

Gaza's Health Ministry says two Israeli strikes in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 88 people.

The Israeli military says one of its airstrikes in early October killed a top Hezbollah official who had been widely expected to become the group’s next leader.

Hezbollah’s acting leader says the Lebanese militant group is focused on “hurting the enemy” by targeting Haifa and other parts of Israel, including Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah has fired another barrage of rockets into Israel, and the militant group’s acting leader vows to keep up pressure that has forced thousands of Israelis from their homes near the Lebanese border.

Iran’s supreme leader has praised the country’s recent missile strike on Israel and said it is ready to do it again if necessary.

Israel has carried out a series of punishing airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The Biden administration says there's a significant difference between Israeli actions that have expanded its war against the Iranian-backed militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran’s retaliatory missile attack against Israel.

Hezbollah has warned that the rockets that struck central Israel were only the beginning and that the militant group is waiting for invading forces to enter Lebanon to confront them.

Since Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been quick to show they're an important player in the complex conflicts convulsing the Middle East.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched an explosive-loaded drone that crashed into one ship in the Red Sea and a missile that exploded against another.

The Pentagon says is sending a “few thousand” additional troops to the Middle East to bolster security and to be prepared to defend Israel if necessary.

Israeli ground forces moved into southern Lebanon, marking a significant escalation of an offensive against Hezbollah and opening a new front in a yearlong war against its Iranian-backed adversaries.

In just over a week, intensified Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed seven high-ranking commanders and officials from the powerful Hezbollah militant group, including the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

President Joe Biden says he will speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believes an all-out war in the Middle East has to be avoided.

Smoke is still rising from the smoldering wreckage where an Israeli airstrike killed the leader of Hezbollah more than two days ago.

The first apparent Israeli airstrike in central Beirut in nearly a year of conflict has hit hours after Israel struck targets across Lebanon and killed dozens of people as the Hezbollah militant group sustained a string of deadly blows to its command structure, including the killing of its overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah has confirmed the death of high-ranking official Nabil Kaouk in an Israeli strike.

President Joe Biden says the Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah was a “measure of justice” for what he called a four-decade “reign of terror.”.

Hundreds of families displaced from Beirut's southern suburbs after the area was pummeled overnight by the heaviest Israeli airstrikes in nearly a year of limited conflict are sleeping in public squares and beaches or in their cars in the city center.

A prominent general in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard died in an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who transformed the Lebanese militant group into a potent paramilitary and political force in the Middle East, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has confirmed that its leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Hezbollah has confirmed that its leader of more than three decades, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah led the Lebanese militant group for the past three decades, transforming it into one of the most powerful paramilitary groups in the Middle East.

The Israeli military says it struck the headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, causing massive explosions that leveled multiple buildings.

After almost a year of trading fire, Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are now engaged in ferocious confrontations that threaten to turn into a full-blown war.

The assassination of Hezbollah's leader by Israel is a monumental and demoralizing blow to the Lebanese militant group he led for 32 years.

The leader of Hezbollah vowed to retaliate for this week’s deadly attacks on the group’s communications devices.

Just one day after pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded, more electronic devices detonated in Lebanon Wednesday in what appeared to be a second wave of sophisticated, deadly attacks that targeted an extraordinary number of people.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has thanked Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for his support in the ongoing war with Israel.

Several U.S. officials say the pier built by the American military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled on the beach to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently.

An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon has killed a senior Hezbollah commander as tensions continue to boil.

Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are threatening all-out war.

Iran-backed groups in the Middle East say thousands of their fighters are offering to come to Lebanon to join with the militant Hezbollah group in its battle with Israel.

Lebanese government officials are working to maintain friendly relations with Cyprus a day after the militant Hezbollah group threatened to attack the Mediterranean island if it allows Israel to use its territories to attack Lebanon.

The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says it has new weapons and intelligence capabilities that could help it target more critical positions deeper inside Israel in case of an all-out war.

Iran’s foreign minister has accused the United States of giving Israel the “green light” for a strike on its consulate building in Syria that killed seven Iranian military officials, including two generals.

The prospect of a full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia terrifies people on both sides of the border, but some see it as an inevitable fallout from Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The White House says “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, even as Israeli leaders vow to intensify their operation against the territory’s ruling Hamas militant group.

The leader of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah says his group must retaliate after a presumed Israeli strike hit a Beirut neighborhood this week, killing a senior Hamas official.

The chief of Israel’s Mossad has vowed the intelligence agency will hunt down every Hamas member involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, no matter where they are.

The Lebanese militia Hezbollah has traded fire with Israeli troops along the border since the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.

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

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected U.S. calls for a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war, telling U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday “we are going full steam ahead,” unless the hostages held by Hamas are released.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against growing pressure for a humanitarian pause in the nearly month-old war to protect civilians and allow more aid into Gaza.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group has met with top Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials.

Increased Israeli airstrikes are devastating parts of the Gaza Strip, jeopardizing relief operations and leaving neighborhoods in shambles.

The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group says that if governments of Muslim-majority nations do not act against countries that allow desecration of the Quran, Muslims should “punish” those who facilitate attacks on Islam's holy book.

Lebanon and Israel signed and delivered copies of a U.S.-mediated sea border deal following months of indirect talks.

Dozens of relatives of the victims of Beirut’s 2020 massive port blast have protested plans by the judiciary to name a second investigative judge, calling the move an attempt by the country’s political class to prevent justice.

Forty years since it was founded, Lebanon's Hezbollah has transformed from a ragtag organization to the largest and most heavily armed militant group in the Middle East.

The stabbing of author Salman Rushdie has laid bare divisions in Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim community.

Salman Rushdie's agent says the author is “on the road to recovery” two days after suffering serious injuries in a stabbing at a lecture in upstate New York.

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

The U.S. has quietly seized the cargo of two tankers suspected of transporting Iranian oil as part of an elaborate sanctions-busting scheme involving forged documents and the repainting of a ship’s deck to cloak shipments considered illegal under U.S. sanctions.

The Israeli military says it has shot down an unmanned aircraft launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group into Israeli airspace.

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.

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.

Lebanon's state news agency says a judge has charged 68 people in this month's deadly clash in Beirut that left seven people dead and dozens wounded.

A boast by the leader of Hezbollah that he commands 100,000 fighters has come as a surprise to many Lebanese.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah has declared for the first time that his powerful militant group has 100,000 trained fighters.

Funerals have taken place across Lebanon for seven people killed in gunbattles on the streets of Beirut the day before.

A convoy of tanker trucks carrying Iranian diesel has crossed the border from Syria into Lebanon.

Many Lebanese are more openly criticizing the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group as the country sinks deeper into poverty and collapse.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is giving radical Islamic groups from Syria and the Gaza Strip to Pakistan and West Africa reason to celebrate.

Israel's prime minister says Lebanon is responsible for attacks launched from “its backyard" no matter who fires them.

The leader of the militant Hezbollah says his group will retaliate against any future Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, a day after his supporters fired a barrage of rockets toward Israel.

The leader of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia has vowed to retaliate against America for the deaths of four of his men in a U.S. airstrike along the Iraq-Syria border last month.

Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militant group has stayed out of the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

WASHINGTON – The United States on Monday offered a $10 million reward for information on a Hezbollah operative who was convicted last year in the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri. Ayyash is a senior member of Hezbollah's Unit 121, an assassination squad that the department said reports to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The announcement said Ayyash is known to have been involved in efforts to harm American troops in the past. An international tribunal convicted Ayyash in absentia and sentenced him to five life sentences on charges related to the 2005 suicide truck bombing in Beirut that killed Hariri and 21 other people. Three other Hezbollah members had been acquitted in August of all charges that they also were involved in the killing that sent shock waves through the Middle East.

As more Lebanese fall into poverty in the country's economic crisis, increasing numbers are turning to the financial arm of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group for help. He could still pull out the dollars in his account at the al-Qard al-Hasan Association, the financial arm of the militant Hezbollah group. Stepping in where the state and financial institutions have failed, Hezbollah is providing a vital lifeline for some Lebanese. Over the past year, the al-Qard al-Hasan association has seen a significant increase in clients, despite it being under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2007. That has proven a boon for the al-Qard al-Hasan association, as some turned to it as an alternative to store their cash.

U.N. peacekeeping military vehicles enter the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the southern Lebanese border town of Naqoura, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. Lebanon and Israel are to begin Wednesday indirect talks over the disputed maritime border between the two countries in the presence of American officials who are mediating between the Middle Eastern nations. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)NAQOURA – Lebanon and Israel began indirect talks on Wednesday over their disputed maritime border, with American officials mediating the talks that both sides insist are purely technical and not a sign of any normalization of ties. The U.S.-mediated talks began at a U.N. post along the border known as Ras Naqoura, on the edge of the Lebanese border town of Naqoura. Israel and Lebanon also held indirect negotiations in the 1990s, when Arab states and Israel worked on peace agreements.

An Israeli soldier fires on board the Israeli Navy Ship Lahav during a rare tour of Israel's offshore Leviathan gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. The natural gas industry, seen as a national asset, is at the heart of those efforts. With so much at stake, Hezbollah has identified Israeli gas installations as high-priority targets. During a monthlong war in 2006, a Hezbollah cruise-missile strike on an Israeli “Saar 5” warship killed four soldiers. Netanyahu, who is on trial in three other corruption cases, was not named as a suspect in the scandal and no one active in the Israeli navy has been connected.

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.

FILE - In this Jan. 16, 2014 file photo, shows an exterior view of the Special Tribunal for the assassination of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Leidschendam, Netherlands. Hariri was Lebanons most prominent Sunni politician at the time of his Feb. 14, 2005, assassination, while the Iran-backed Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group. The trial centered on the alleged roles of four Hezbollah members in the suicide truck bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others and wounded 226 people. Initially, five suspects were tried, all of them Hezbollah members. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last week insisted on the innocence of the suspects regardless of the verdicts.

Unlike the blast that killed Hariri and 21 others on Feb. 14, 2005, the Aug. 4 explosion was believed to be a result of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that accidentally ignited at Beirut's port. Hariri was Lebanons most prominent Sunni politician at the time, while the Iran-backed Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim group. Hamadeh said those who killed Hariri were behind the attempt on his life. Hariri was killed by a suicide truck bomb on a seaside boulevard in Beirut that killed him and 21 others, and wounded 226 people. Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the late Hariri, has said he will make a statement regarding the verdicts after they are made public.

(AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)BEIRUT Lebanese President Michel Aoun says the probe into a devastating blast in Beirut is very complex and wont be finished quickly. Responding to calls that he step down, Aoun told French TV station BFMTV in his first interview with foreign media since the Aug. 4 blast that it would be "impossible" because it would create a power vacuum. The cause of the fire that ignited nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beiruts port remains unclear. We had the determination to reach conclusions quickly but we found out that the issues are very complex and require time, said Aoun. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has denied his group has any role in the explosion and said any international probe would likely seek to clear Israel of responsibility in the port explosion, if it had a hand.

FILE - In this August 5, 2020 file photo, smoke rises from the scene of an explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)BEIRUT A team of FBI investigators is due to arrive in Lebanon this weekend to take part in the probe of Beirut's massive explosion, a senior U.S official said on Saturday after visiting the location of the blast. David Hale, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, called for a thorough and transparent investigation. Hassan Nasrallah said the cause of the explosion is still unclear, adding that any international probe would also have to clear Israel of any responsibility in the port explosion. On Friday, the United Nations launched a $565 million appeal for Lebanon with immediate humanitarian assistance and initial recovery efforts.

In the Mideast, wave after wave of war, disease and economic collapse leaves this generation feeling hopeless. She was preparing to leave to England, where she would spend a year working on her masters degree in pharmacy. Even before the pandemic, in 2019 youth employment in the Arab region was estimated at 26.4%, compared to a global rate of 13.6%, according to estimates by the International Labor Organization. A U.N. report this week expected some Arab economies to shrink by up to 13% this year, compounding the suffering of those affected by armed conflict. Working at the pharmacy in Baghdads Karrada district, al-Diwani encounters people suspected of being infected with the virus every day.

BEIRUT The head of Hezbollah group on Tuesday said Lebanon should not observe new U.S. sanctions against Syria which he described as deeply hurtful to his country if implemented. Nasrallah said Lebanon is likely to be deeply hurt if it observes those sanctions, known as the U.S. Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Losing the land route with Syria would force Lebanon to turn to Israel, which Nasrallah suggested is the aim of U.S. sanctions and which he said is rejected. In a confrontational 100-minute televised speech, Nasrallah said the sanctions on Syria are aimed at creating chaos after Damascus emerged victorious in the nine-year war. Turning to Syria, Nasrallah said the sanctions would fail to achieve their desired effects.

For more than nine days, the huge gatherings of Muslim, Christian, secular, progressive and religiously conservative people served as a display of revolt that has jolted the country's political establishment. Aoun and Hariri said they believed the country's sectarian system has failed, but offered no political concessions. A way forwardAs discontent with the country's sectarian leaders brewed in recent years, multiple nonsectarian groups have cropped up on the political landscape. Members cover 14-hour shifts, speaking to passersby and holding rallies about plans for political transition from the country's sectarian leadership. "There is no more fuel in the engine," he says, adding that it is time for the country's leaders to come to terms with this.

BEIRUT - The leader of Hezbollah has vowed to shoot down any Israeli drones that enter into Lebanese airspace, after two drones reportedly crashed in Beirut, Sunday. Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, said that two Israeli drones crashed in the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut, with one exploding. The Israeli military said those strikes foiled an imminent attack by Iran and a Shiite militia on north Israel. Unlike more standard attack drones, which fire missiles towards their targets, the killer drone acts as its own missile by flying into the target itself. Of course, I have given the security forces a free hand and the instruction to do what is needed to thwart these plans of Iran," Netanyahu said.