标签： Oceania

Fresh cross-border violence has sent tensions soaring between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, after Israel carried out targeted airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs Sunday, responding to what it says were rocket launches by Hezbollah targeting Israeli civilian areas.

Sunday’s strikes marked only the third time that southern Beirut—an area long considered a core Hezbollah stronghold—has been hit by Israeli attacks since mid-April, a zone that had remained relatively quiet amid months of routine cross-border fire exchanges between the two sides. In an official confirmation of the operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated the military had just targeted a Hezbollah militant command center in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, launching the assault in direct response to Hezbollah fire directed at Israeli territory.

A separate statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) elaborated on the operation, noting that after Hezbollah fired projectiles toward civilian communities inside Israel, the IDF executed a “precise strike” against a key Hezbollah command post. The military added that it had taken multiple proactive steps to minimize civilian harm before the attack, including the use of precision-guided munitions and advanced aerial surveillance to reduce unintended civilian casualties. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) confirmed the strikes hit two residential apartments located in separate multi-story buildings. An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer on the ground documented visible damage to two apartments in one residential building on a narrow Beirut side street, while widespread traffic gridlock formed as panicked local residents attempted to evacuate the suburb, and Lebanese military units deployed to secure the affected area.

Earlier on Sunday, air raid sirens triggered across northern Israel, and the IDF confirmed it had successfully intercepted two projectiles that had crossed the border from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah has not issued an immediate public response to the Beirut strikes, though the group did confirm separate offensive operations targeting Israeli military personnel along the Lebanese border earlier the same day.

This latest escalation comes just days after indirect negotiations in Washington, where Lebanese and Israeli diplomatic representatives presented a conditional ceasefire proposal that would have required Hezbollah to halt all cross-border fire and withdraw its fighters from positions near the Israeli-Lebanese border. The proposal collapsed after Hezbollah rejected the terms, demanding that Israel fully withdraw from all contested Lebanese territory before any ceasefire can take effect. Even before Sunday’s strike, Israeli officials had explicitly warned they would target southern Beirut if Hezbollah resumed attacks on northern Israel.

The current unrest in Lebanon grew out of the broader Middle East conflict, when Hezbollah opened the border front on March 2, launching rockets at Israel in a show of support for its regional patron Iran. Tehran has since maintained that any comprehensive agreement to end the wider regional conflict—currently paused by a separate ceasefire reached in April—must also include an end to hostilities along the Israel-Lebanon border.

Iranian officials have already issued sharp threats of retaliation over Sunday’s strikes. Iranian parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused the United States of giving Israel a “green light” to carry out the Beirut attack, warning that “our armed forces, as always, are free to act” in response. Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, echoed the threat, promising a “decisive and painful response” to the Israeli operation.

Iran’s position tying the Lebanon conflict to the broader regional war has significantly complicated diplomatic efforts led by the United States to de-escalate tensions. In an interview aired Sunday on U.S. network NBC’s *Meet the Press*, recorded one day before the strike, U.S. President Donald Trump called on Israel to adopt more targeted military tactics. “I’d like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah,” he said. “I’d like to see Lebanon have a better life.”

Sunday’s violence extended far beyond the capital, with the NNA reporting a wave of additional Israeli strikes across multiple locations in southern Lebanon. The attacks come one day after Lebanese authorities confirmed at least five people, including a Lebanese army general, were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the region.

On Sunday, the IDF also issued a mandatory evacuation warning for most of the coastal city of Tyre and its surrounding outskirts. The city currently shelters thousands of internally displaced people who fled earlier fighting near the border, and it has faced heavy sustained bombardment since hostilities began. An AFP correspondent on the ground reported that Lebanese civil defense teams evacuated roughly 500 families from school buildings that had been repurposed as emergency shelters, moving them to the city’s Christian quarter, which was not included in the evacuation order.

Further north near the coastal city of Sidon, public funerals were held Sunday for four people killed in an Israeli airstrike a day prior: three members of one extended family and a local rescue worker. Lebanon’s ministry of health reports that at least 131 rescue workers have been killed by Israeli strikes since the conflict began. “We do not carry rockets, our only weapon is the bread we deliver to people,” Qassem Foani, a fellow rescuer, told AFP. “They went and gave the family bread, but as they were leaving, a drone struck them.”

According to updated counts from Lebanon’s health ministry, Israel’s wide-ranging air campaign and ground invasion of southern Lebanon have killed more than 3,600 people in the country since hostilities escalated earlier this year.

One hundred days into the ongoing regional conflict that has roiled the Middle East, no path to a lasting ceasefire has emerged, as a fresh escalation at the strategic Strait of Hormuz and continued deadlock in diplomatic talks have deepened uncertainty across the region and global markets.

On Sunday, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed it had intercepted and destroyed two Iranian drones that posed a direct threat to international commercial shipping moving through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints. This latest confrontation followed a earlier pattern of tit-for-tat exchanges: a prior U.S. drone interception and strikes on Iranian radar sites prompted Tehran to launch a barrage of missiles at U.S. Gulf allies Bahrain and Kuwait just one day prior.

The 100-day milestone arrived alongside renewed diplomatic efforts led by Pakistan, which has stepped in as a neutral mediator after weeks of indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran that have been repeatedly interrupted by cross-border threats and sporadic armed exchanges. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi traveled to Tehran on Saturday to deliver a special confidential message from Pakistani Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir — who has spearheaded Pakistan’s mediation efforts after an initial round of indirect talks in Islamabad — to Iran’s Supreme Leader, alongside a separate communication from Pakistan’s prime minister.

Parallel to the Tehran-Washington talks, Lebanon’s top military commander General Rodolphe Haykal also traveled to Pakistan over the weekend to meet with Munir, as Beirut pushes for a resolution to the separate parallel conflict on Lebanese soil between the Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah. Iran has insisted that any regional peace agreement must include provisions to end fighting in Lebanon, and a source familiar with Haykal’s trip confirmed the visit was directly tied to the ongoing Pakistani-mediated negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

Despite these new diplomatic overtures, core sticking points have left talks firmly deadlocked. Iranian Supreme Leader military advisor Mohsen Rezaei told CNN earlier that negotiations with the U.S. remain at an impasse, calling on former U.S. President Donald Trump to break the deadlock while demanding the release of approximately $24 billion in Iranian assets frozen by U.S. sanctions. Washington, however, is considering redirecting those frozen funds to compensate U.S. Gulf allies for damage caused by recent Iranian strikes, a senior source familiar with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s policy position confirmed.

Iranian top diplomat Abbas Araghchi described negotiations with the Trump administration as uniquely cumbersome in a CNN interview published Sunday, noting that shifting U.S. negotiating positions and contradictory public statements have made consistent progress impossible. “The main problem of negotiating with this administration is that you have to face so many changing positions, moving the goal posts, different statements, contradictory remarks,” he said.

Fighting on the Lebanese front flared back up on the 100th day of the war, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israeli forces had struck a Hezbollah militant command center in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a core Hezbollah stronghold. The strike was framed as a response to fresh fire directed at Israeli territory. Lebanon’s state-owned National News Agency reported the strikes damaged two residential apartments in separate buildings, and AFP correspondents on the ground saw widespread panic as residents fled the area, while Lebanese military units deployed to secure the perimeter. Araghchi had previously warned that any Israeli strike on Beirut would trigger a full-scale resumption of regional hostilities.

Beyond the front lines and negotiating rooms, the prolonged conflict has pushed ordinary Iranians into deepening economic and psychological distress. With soaring inflation and collapsing purchasing power, many residents describe daily life as barely survivable. “I really have gone numb,” 32-year-old Ahvaz-based fitness trainer Elaheh told AFP. “Daily life? It’s a joke. Everything is horrible. We only try to survive.”

Thirty-five-year-old chef Farhad echoed that despair, noting economic hardship had already taken hold before the current conflict escalated, and conditions have only grown worse. “Things that just a few months ago you might have considered buying have now become dreams and fairy tales,” he said. Farhad added that the constant cycle of drone strikes and missile exchanges has become a grim new normal, leaving the region trapped in a permanent state of uncertainty. “I feel like this situation is going to stay like this for a while; a sort of suspended, up-in-the-air state where those guys fire a few missiles, these guys launch a few drones,” he said.

The ongoing volatility has already rattled global commodity and energy markets, and has piled additional domestic political pressure on Trump ahead of upcoming U.S. midterm elections, with voters closely scrutinizing the administration’s handling of the crisis.

On Sunday morning, voting booths opened across Peru for a tightly contested presidential runoff that will shape the future of a country that has already seen eight leaders hold office over the past 10 years. With rising violent crime and persistent political instability top of mind for voters, roughly 27 million eligible Peruvians from the high Andes Mountains to the remote Amazon basin are casting ballots to select a chief executive for a five-year term.

The race pits two ideologically opposed candidates against each other: conservative Keiko Fujimori, a 51-year-old veteran who has run for the presidency four times previously, and 57-year-old leftist former cabinet minister Roberto Sanchez. Pre-election opinion polling has shown the pair neck-and-neck, with a late campaign surge from Sanchez fueled by overwhelming support from rural communities pushing him into the runoff after an unexpectedly strong first-round performance.

The lead-up to Sunday’s vote has been overshadowed by lingering institutional distrust and last-minute political drama. Peru’s first round of voting was delayed for weeks by crippling logistical failures and a slow vote count, deepening public skepticism of the country’s already fragile democratic institutions. A day before polls opened, a judge ruled that Sanchez must stand trial on charges of past financial irregularities tied to his political party, a decision that has sparked accusations of judicial interference in the election. If Sanchez wins the presidency, he will gain legal immunity, though he will still face a hostile right-leaning legislature that has already removed multiple sitting presidents from office in recent years.

For Fujimori, her campaign leans heavily on the complicated legacy of her late father, Alberto Fujimori, who served as president in the 1990s. While he is credited with stabilizing Peru’s economy and defeating the violent Shining Path Maoist insurgency, he died in prison while serving a sentence for corruption and crimes against humanity. Keiko Fujimori has positioned herself as part of a broader right-wing wave across Latin America, where U.S.-backed conservative candidates have claimed victory in recent elections in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and other regional neighbors. She has campaigned on hardline security pledges, promising to militarize the country’s prison system and expel irregular migrants with the same “force” her father used against insurgents in the 1990s.

Sanchez, a trained psychologist and sitting congressman, draws his political roots from the rural, working-class base of his political mentor, former president Pedro Castillo, who was removed from office and jailed in 2022 after he attempted to dissolve Congress. A visible marker of that connection is the wide-brimmed palm straw hat Sanchez always wears in public, a gift from Castillo; he has pledged to pardon Castillo if elected. Over the course of the campaign, Sanchez has moderated his early calls for “radical change” and distanced himself from radical ultranationalist factions, saying he seeks a “respectful” working relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump. He frames his opponent as a product of the powerful, corrupt political establishment controlled by a deeply partisan Congress that he labels a “dictatorship.”

Public frustration with the status quo runs deep across the country. Many voters say they see no ideal option on the ballot. “There is a lot of disorder and corruption, and we’re going to vote, as always, for the ‘lesser evil’,” Hugo Vasquez, a 67-year-old craft vendor in the capital Lima, told reporters. Early voter Evelyn Pazos, 43, echoed the widespread desire for a fair process, saying “I hope the entire process is carried out transparently, that the people’s vote is respected.”

For most Peruvians, the top issue driving their vote is public safety. Criminal gangs have expanded their control across much of the country, and official reports show extortion complaints have jumped ninefold over the past five years. “They kill, dismember, demand protection money. Enough!” said Roberto Lovaton, a 58-year-old Lima taxi driver. Sanchez has campaigned on rooting out systemic corruption within the police and judiciary, which he says has allowed criminal networks to flourish with impunity.

Economically, the next president will inherit a mixed picture: official indicators show steady GDP growth of more than 3% and low inflation, but 70% of all working Peruvians remain trapped in the informal sector with no labor protections or social benefits. Fujimori runs on a platform of neoliberal economic reform, strong protections for private property rights, and attracting increased foreign direct investment from the United States. Sanchez, meanwhile, has promised to raise minimum wages for working Peruvians but has sought to reassure nervous investors by committing to maintain an open market economy and preserve the independence of Peru’s central bank, two key pillars of the country’s current economic stability.

Political analysts warn that no matter the outcome, Peru is unlikely to see a quick end to its long-running instability. Neither candidate holds a majority in the 130-seat unicameral legislature, meaning the next president will be forced to build cross-party alliances to pass legislation and complete their full five-year term, a requirement that has sunk previous administrations. “Whoever wins will face questions of legitimacy if the result is close. That means more instability,” said analyst David Sulmont. The winner of the runoff will be sworn in to replace interim president Jose Maria Balcazar on July 28.

On the second day of his seven-day national tour, Pope Leo XIV drew a crowd of more than 1.2 million worshippers and visitors to central Madrid Sunday, where he led an open-air mass calling for a revitalization of Catholic faith across the traditionally Catholic European nation.

Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia joined the throngs of devotees who packed Cibeles Square and its surrounding streets, waving both Spanish and Vatican flags, for a service rich in centuries of religious tradition. In his homily, the pontiff urged Spaniards to reject framing religion as a static relic of history, urging them instead to engage with it as a living, enduring guide for modern life. “Spaniards should not look at religion as a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today,” Pope Leo told the assembled crowd.

Spain has long been regarded as a core stronghold of Catholicism in Western Europe, but like many of its regional neighbors, it has seen a sharp decline in regular religious observance in recent decades. A survey released last month by Spain’s autonomous government research body the Centre for Sociological Research found that just 56 percent of Spaniards now identify as Catholic, a dramatic drop from the 90 percent figure recorded in the 1970s.

Authorities and event organizers mounted a massive logistical and security operation to manage the historic gathering. After the conclusion of the mass, Pope Leo led a traditional procession along a route lined with white and yellow carnations, the official colors of the Vatican flag, matching the turnout estimates that pegged attendance at more than 1.2 million in the square and surrounding areas.

Attendees from across the globe shared perspectives on the pontiff’s visit, with many highlighting his message of unity amid growing global and domestic division. Nico Aldeanueva, a 28-year-old traveler from Philadelphia, United States, described the pope as a unifying voice at a time of fractured discourse across political, social and cultural lines. “We have, it seems like, never-ending conflict and for the time being here you get to hit pause and get to enjoy the moment and feel the faith,” Aldeanueva said.

Sixty-four-year-old Ana Milagros, a local attendee waving a Vatican flag, called the U.S.-born pontiff approachable and sincere, noting his efforts to bridge deep divides across Spanish politics, society and the economy. “The pope is trying with this visit… to help all of us,” she said.

The Sunday mass marked the second day of Pope Leo’s week-long visit to Spain. On Saturday, an estimated 500,000 people, the vast majority young worshippers, gathered with the pope outside Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium for an overnight prayer vigil. The tour opened with an official ceremonial reception at Madrid’s Royal Palace, where Pope Leo called for an end to divisive rhetoric and oversimplified public discourse, while praising Spain’s left-wing government for its commitment to global peace and cross-national solidarity amid heightened geopolitical tensions between the government, his native United States and Israel over ongoing Middle East conflicts.

Later Sunday, the pope is scheduled to meet leading figures from Spanish culture, sport and business at a local arena to foster ongoing dialogue between Catholic faith and modern civil society. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he will travel to Barcelona, where a key highlight of his visit will be the blessing of the newly completed tower of the Sagrada Familia basilica, a construction that officially makes the site the tallest church in the world. The tour will conclude with a focus on global migration during stops in the Canary Islands Thursday and Friday, a major arrival point for irregular migrants crossing the Atlantic, where thousands of people have died attempting to reach European shores.