Stuck in no man's land on the war-hit Lebanon-Syria border, cab driver Fadi Slika now scrapes a living ferrying passengers between two deep craters left by Israeli air strikes.

For more than a year, the United States has steadfastly backed Israel in its Gaza war while quietly counseling restraint. With Donald Trump's return, the nuance will vanish, although his hunger for deal-making makes him less predictable.

When Zarifa Nawfal's family arrived in Beirut for her wounded daughter's surgery, one of the first things she wanted to do was go to the sea. The Mediterranean had been a constant companion at their home in Gaza before the war.

"The moment I smelled the sea, I felt at peace inside — as if I were in Gaza," she said.

Qatar's suspension of its crucial mediation between Israel and Hamas has crushed hopes for a long-stalled truce in the Gaza war and hostage release deal.

The wealthy Gulf country hosts the largest U.S. base in the Middle East and Hamas's political office, and has played a pivotal role in indirect talks since the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have returned to their country since Israel launched a massive aerial bombardment on wide swathes of Lebanon in September. Many who fled to Lebanon after the war in Syria started in 2011 did not want to go back.

But for officials in Lebanon, the influx of returnees comes as a silver lining to the war between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced some 1.2 million in Lebanon. Some in Syria hope the returning refugees could lead to more international assistance and relief from western sanctions.

As he bid farewell to Washington in January 2021, deeply unpopular and diminished, Donald Trump was already hinting at a comeback.

"Goodbye. We love you. We will be back in some form," Trump told supporters at Joint Base Andrews, where he'd arranged a 21-gun salute as part of a military send-off before boarding Air Force One. "We will see you soon."

Donald Trump will return to the U.S. presidency at a time of unprecedented conflict and uncertainty in the Middle East. He has vowed to fix it.

But Trump's history of strong support for Israel coupled with his insistence during the campaign that the war in Gaza should end quickly, the isolationist forces in the Republican party and his penchant for unpredictability raise a mountain of questions over how his second presidency will affect the region at this pivotal moment.

The U.S. Election Day is nearly upon us. In a matter of hours, the final votes in the 2024 presidential election will be cast.

In a deeply divided nation, the election is a true toss-up between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

More than a month into its war with Israel, Hezbollah says it is ready for a truce, but there are limits to what it can accept after suffering devastating attacks, analysts say.

The Iran-backed group said Wednesday it would accept a ceasefire, if offered and if the terms were "suitable," acknowledging it had been dealt "painful" blows by Israel.

Cattle farmer Khairallah Yaacoub refused to leave south Lebanon despite a year of Hezbollah-Israel clashes. When full-scale war erupted, he and four others were stranded in their ruined border village.

Yaacoub is among a handful of villagers in the war-battered south who have tried to stay put despite the Israeli onslaught.