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Uzbekistan hosts meeting of special envoys of Afghanistan’s neighbors

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The first meeting of special representatives of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries was held in Tashkent in Uzbekistan on Tuesday where participants discussed the current situation in the country.

Representatives from Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan attended the meeting and discussed the current situation in Afghanistan; emphasized the need to find solutions to existing issues; and deliberated on the need for long-lasting peace.

Continuing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan was also discussed.

The meeting was held in the absence of Islamic Emirate representatives.

While several neighboring countries including Russia, China, Iran, and Pakistan have officially handed over the Afghan Embassies to Islamic Emirate diplomats, the IEA has still not been formally recognized by these countries and invited to attend such gatherings.

Afghanistan’s neighboring countries have repeatedly called on the Islamic Emirate to respect human rights, lift the restrictions on women and girls, and to form an inclusive government.

The Islamic Emirate meanwhile says it supports meetings that are in the interest of Afghans. “It is a positive step that if they talk about humanitarian aid to the Afghan people and to cooperate with Afghanistan but overall we can say that all meetings that are in the interest of Afghans, is a positive step,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman of IEA.

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Hezbollah rockets land near Tel Aviv after large Israeli strike on Beirut

Lebanon’s health ministry on Sunday raised the death toll from 20 to 29. It said a total of 84 people had been killed on Saturday, taking the death toll to 3,754 since October 2023.

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Lebanon's Hezbollah movement fired heavy rocket barrages at Israel on Sunday, and the Israeli military said houses had been destroyed or set alight near Tel Aviv, after a powerful Israeli airstrike killed at least 29 people in Beirut the day before, Reuters reported.

Israel also struck Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks has coincided with signs of progress in U.S.-led ceasefire talks.

Hezbollah, which has previously vowed to respond to attacks on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched precision missiles at two military sites in Tel Aviv and nearby.

Police said there were multiple impact sites in the area of Petah Tikvah, on the eastern side of Tel Aviv, and that several people had minor injuries.

The Israel Defense Forces said a direct hit on a neighbourhood had left "houses in flames and ruins". Television footage showed an apartment damaged by rocket fire.

Israel's military said Hezbollah had fired 250 rockets at Israel, of which many were intercepted, with sirens sounding across most of the country. At least four people had been injured by shrapnel.

Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding as it smashed into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.

Israel's military warned on social media that it planned to target Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut before strikes that demolished two apartment blocks, according to security sources in Lebanon. Afterwards, the IDF said it had hit command centres "deliberately embedded between civilian buildings".

On Sunday, the Israeli military said it carried out strikes against 12 Hezbollah command centers in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

On Saturday, it had carried out one of its deadliest and most powerful strikes on the centre of Beirut, read the report.

Lebanon's health ministry on Sunday raised the death toll from 20 to 29. It said a total of 84 people had been killed on Saturday, taking the death toll to 3,754 since October 2023.

The IDF did not comment on Saturday's strike in the Lebanese capital or say what it had attacked.

Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in September, pounding the south, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut's southern suburbs with airstrikes after nearly a year of hostilities ignited by the Gaza war.

The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon.

Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before travelling to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, and then returning to Washington.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday said a U.S. ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel.

"We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the pressure on Hezbollah to accept the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire," he said in Beirut after meeting Lebanese officials.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had convened a meeting of his security cabinet for 5 p.m. (1500 GMT).

Axios reporter Barak Ravid in a post on social media cited an unnamed Israeli official saying that Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

But a separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.

Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone, Reuters reported.

The Lebanese army said on Sunday at least one soldier had been killed and 18 more injured in an Israeli strike that caused severe damage at an army centre in Al-Amiriya near the southern city of Tyre.

The Israeli military said it regretted the incident and was investigating, and that it was fighting against Hezbollah, not the Lebanese Army.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack "represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army's presence in the south, and implement ... 1701".

Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208 million) to support the Lebanese army.

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At least 18 dead in retaliatory sectarian attacks in Pakistan

The latest killings in a tribal district began on Friday night, when armed men attacked a village in the district, said the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

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At least 18 people were killed and 30 injured in further sectarian violence in northwestern Pakistan, officials said on Saturday, as tensions remained high following attacks on transport convoys that killed dozens of civilians this week, Reuters reported.

The latest killings in a tribal district began on Friday night, when armed men attacked a village in the district, said the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry.

"They set on fire petrol stations and damaged properties as part of revenge," he told Reuters by phone. He said he and top police officials would be visiting the area and engage tribal elders on both sides to restore order.

The toll since Thursday is 58 dead, read the report.

AFP reported on Saturday that 32 people were killed in the latest violence, citing an unnamed official.

On Thursday unidentified gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles, killing over 40 in the Kurrram district, where armed Shia and Sunni Muslims have engaged in tribal and sectarian rivalry for decades over a land dispute near the Afghanistan border.

Most of the dead were Shiites, officials said, sparking retaliatory attacks by armed groups, with markets and schools remaining shut in a curfew-like situation, Reuters reported.

A police official requesting anonymity told Reuters that the death toll from the fresh violence could have been higher had residents of the village that was attacked not already evacuated their homes in anticipation of more violence.

He said the residents of Bagan village, a mostly Sunni area, had already left their homes and shifted to safe places in Lower Kurram.

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Gunmen attack Pakistan passenger vehicles, killing at least 38 people

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Gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles in a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 38 people and wounding 29, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, said.

Reuters reported that among the fatalities in the attack, which occurred in the Kurram tribal district, were a woman and a child, Chaudhry said, adding: “It’s a major tragedy and death toll is likely to rise."

No group claimed responsibility for the incident.

"There were two convoys of passenger vehicles, one carrying passengers from Peshawar to Parachinar and another from Parachinar to Peshawar, when armed men opened fire on them,” a local resident of Parachinar, Ziarat Hussain told Reuters by telephone, adding that his relatives were travelling from Peshawar in the convoy.

President Asif Ali Zardari, in a statement, strongly condemned the attack on passenger vehicles.

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