Lebanon president criticises Iran as Israeli strikes continue

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Agence France-Presse on Friday demanded an explanation from Israel's ambassador to France after he admitted on French TV that his country was behind a 2023 attack on reporters in Lebanon.

A Reuters journalist was killed, and two AFP reporters were seriously wounded when they came under fire in southern Lebanon close to the border with Israel in October 2023.

Both news agencies and several NGOs concluded Israeli forces were behind the attack, but Israel has never formally acknowledged responsibility and has told AFP several times that the incident was still under review.

Israel's ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka, however, conceded on a programme broadcast late Thursday that Israeli forces had made a "mistake" in firing on the group.

He insisted that the reporters "were not targeted because they were journalists" as "the soldiers on the ground thought that they were terrorists".

AFP's news director Phil Chetwynd wrote a formal letter to Zarka on Friday demanding more details.

"In our view, these remarks amount to the first public acknowledgement by an official Israeli representative that the two strikes which hit a clearly identified group of journalists were carried out by Israeli forces," Chetwynd wrote.

"AFP is seeking precise and substantiated answers regarding what you yourself have described as a 'mistake'."

Iran has launched multiple drones towards the Strait of Hormuz, CNN reported on Friday, citing a US official who also said at least four drones were shot down by US aircraft. 

US President Donald Trump said Iran still had 21 percent to 22 percent of its missiles left, according to an interview with NBC News' 'Meet the Press' on Friday.

"They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say percentage wise, maybe 21-22 percent of their missiles. It's a lot of missiles, but it's not what it was when we first attacked," Trump was quoted as saying.

Israeli gunfire killed an infant and wounded his parents on Friday in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Sam Fahd Abou Haikal, aged seven months, died, and his parents were lightly injured "after the occupation forces opened fire on them on Friday evening" in the south of the city of Hebron, the ministry said. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dr Tareq Barbarawi, the director of a Hebron hospital, had earlier told AFP the child had been taken into care with "serious" injuries.

According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the Israeli army fired towards the family's car.

Russia wants oil prices on global markets to be balanced and stable amid the US war against Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.

Speaking at Russia's annual economic forum, Putin said that the reduction in oil supplies was causing concern in the market, but that Russia was participating in OPEC+ to help balance the market.

The United States will add 40 million barrels to its strategic petroleum reserve after the conflict in Iran is over, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Friday in an interview on Fox Business. 

An Israeli strike in the south on Friday killed five people, including a woman and an emergency worker, condemning "the targeting of paramedics carrying out rescue operations", Lebanon's health ministry said.

"The Israeli enemy strike on the town of Zebdine in the Nabatieh district killed five people including a woman, and a paramedic from the Risala Association, and wounded two people including a paramedic," a ministry statement said, referring to emergency responders affiliated with Hezbollah ally the Amal movement.

UK's second-largest health and beauty retailer Superdrug removed Ahava after images showed possible ingredients were sourced from an illegal Israeli settlement, Mitzpe Shalem.

The images came from a Quaker-linked group. Ahava denies ongoing production in the settlement, stating that all production had moved to sites within Israel's recognised borders, such as Ein Gedi, by 2022.

WELL DONE @superdrug 👏👏👏

Superdrug have removed ALL Ahava products due to their link with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Thank you for having a moral compass!

Let’s hope more companies follow suit…. pic.twitter.com/EnCKFckMK9

— Neena Jha (@DrNeenaJha) June 5, 2026

Israeli forces shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said Friday, while the military said it had killed someone who threw firebombs at vehicles.

In the early hours of Friday, the health ministry said it had been informed of "the martyrdom of the young man Haitham Ezzedine Omar Hmeida, 18, by occupation gunfire in the village of Beitin," north east of Ramallah.

It added that the man's body was being withheld.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its forces had "identified several terrorists throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles travelling on a major roadway" near the village of Beitin.

"The soldiers opened fire at the terrorists and eliminated one of them," the military said, adding that its forces were "currently pursuing the remaining suspects."

Celtic's interest in appointing Robbie Keane as their new manager has sparked anger among the club's pro-Palestinian fans after his previous role with Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Keane is the leading contender to take charge of the Scottish champions after reportedly entering talks with the club's principal shareholder, Dermot Desmond.

Keane, who is Ireland's record goalscorer, enjoyed a prolific loan spell at Celtic in 2010.

But his decision to stay in Israel after the conflict in Gaza started sparked criticism in Ireland and turned a vocal section of the Celtic fan-base against him.

Celtic supporters have displayed Palestinian flags at matches throughout the war.

Several Palestinian factions are set to discuss Gaza's future at a meeting in Egypt on Saturday, where the possibility of a role for Mohammed Dahlan, a rival of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, is likely to come up, sources told AFP.

Another meeting between representatives of mediators of the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas is planned for Sunday, according to a Palestinian political source, who said Nikolai Mladenov, high representative for Gaza in US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, was also expected to attend.

The source said Dahlan was trying to convince Hamas to transfer responsibilities in the Gaza Strip to him to facilitate the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement and the entry of a previously appointed technocratic committee tasked with administering the territory temporarily.

A diplomatic source confirmed the information.

Two Romanians were convicted on Friday over the stabbing of an Iranian journalist outside his home in London in a 2024 attack that prosecutors linked to Tehran.

Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, were found guilty of wounding with intent over the stabbing of Pouria Zeraati, a news presenter for Persian-language outlet Iran International.

The attack was "designed to silence a journalist through intimidation and violence", the British prosecution service's anti-terrorism chief Frank Ferguson said after the verdict at Woolwich Crown Court.

The pair will be sentenced on July 3, when the judge could comment on the possible role of Iran in the attack.

Iran's former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was the focus of a 2009 mass protest movement and has spent the last 15 years under house arrest, has been hospitalised after his health deteriorated, an advisor said on Friday.

Mousavi, the last person to serve as Iran's premier before the post was abolished, had claimed to be the rightful victor of the disputed 2009 presidential elections.

Most recently, he urged Iran's clerical leadership to step down because of its deadly crackdown on protesters in January in which many thousands were killed.

Last week, "he suffered a health crisis and was transferred to a hospital," his advisor Ardeshir Amir Arjomand, who is based outside Iran, told BBC Persian.

"He is now hospitalised, although his condition has improved since today," he added.

Israel plans to open an embassy in Slovenia, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said late on Thursday, a sign of a thaw in relations since a new centre-right government took power in Ljubljana.

Prime Minister Janez Jansa's government will likely shift foreign policy away from the previous course. The previous government had recognised a Palestinian state, and banned entry for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"After years of the hostility of the previous government - we now have an opportunity to rebuild, strengthen, and deepen a real partnership," Saar posted on X

ישראל תפתח שגרירות בסלובניה.

בעקבות אישור הפרלמנט בסלובניה את הממשלה החדשה בראשות @JJansaSDS - הודעתי הערב על החלטתי לפתוח לראשונה שגרירות ישראלית בלובליאנה, בירת סלובניה.

הנחיתי את מנכ״ל משרד החוץ עו״ד עדן בר-טל לפעול במהירות וביעילות להקמת השגרירות החדשה ולפתוח מיד בהליכים…

— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) June 4, 2026

The United States imposed new Iran-related sanctions on Friday, targeting several entities, individuals, and LPG tankers, according to the US Treasury Department's website.

Among the 12 entities designated are five based in the Marshall Islands, four in the UAE, and one in China, according to details posted on the department's website. Six vessels were targeted, including four Panama-flagged tankers.

France has opened an investigation into an alleged "war crime" and "torture" over Israel's treatment of French activists who took part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a prosecutor's office said Friday.

The probe was opened at the government's request, the national counterterrorism prosecutor's office (PNAT) said, after activists accused Israeli authorities of mistreatment during their detention last month.

Ireland announced on Friday that it has banned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country, slamming their behaviour towards pro-Palestinian activists.

Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan "has instructed immigration officers to refuse entry to Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister for National Security of Israel, and Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance of Israel, should they seek to enter the state," a justice ministry statement sent to AFP said.

The two ministers' behaviour "not just in the context of the flotilla, but their consistent statements... essentially amount to a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine", Martin told reporters during a summit in Montenegro on Friday.

"In my view, their behaviour justifies sanctions at the EU level as well," he said.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun urged Iran not to interfere in his country in a video interview published on Friday by CNN, also telling the Tehran-backed Hezbollah that diplomacy was the only solution to the conflict with Israel.

"It's not your country, it's our country... It's not your job to interfere into our country," Aoun told Iran in the interview, adding that "they are using Lebanon as a bargaining chip in their negotiation with the United States. It's unacceptable".

"Hezbollah must understand that (there is) no other way but to sit and talk, no other way to solve this problem and to save what's left except through negotiation and diplomacy," he added.

Israel's air force struck south Lebanon on Friday following warnings for several areas of imminent attacks against Hezbollah, after they rejected a truce brokered by the United States.

After Israeli orders for residents to leave most of Tyre, several people sought shelter in the small old city, so far spared from evacuation warnings and strikes and where the Christian quarter is located.

With shelters full, displaced residents were sleeping in cars or tents, but many have left following an Israeli army claim on Tuesday that Hezbollah members were operating in the area, threatening to order evacuations should operatives remain.