Under the global theme “Reporting in the Brave New World: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom and the Media”, UNESCO marked on Monday World Press Freedom Day 2025 with a celebration, held under the patronage of Dr. Paul Morcos, Minister of Information.

The event brought together media professionals, technology and AI experts, government representatives, civil society actors, and young journalists to reflect on the evolving relationship between technology and media in an era shaped by artificial intelligence.

An Israeli drone on Monday carried out three strikes on the southern town of Aitaroun near Israel’s border, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The Lebanese Army said Monday that Hamas handed over a second Palestinian suspected of involvement in rocket fire at Israel, one day after the first suspect was handed over and several days after authorities warned the militant group against harming the country's security.

The Iranian foreign ministry on Monday condemned Washington’s calls for disarming Hezbollah in Lebanon, noting that “this decision is a domestic affair that no side has the right to interfere in.”

Voter turnout reached 45.08 percent in the first round of Lebanon’s municipal elections that was held in Mount Lebanon on Sunday, the Interior Ministry said.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 am Sunday across Mount Lebanon’s six districts, in the first round of Lebanon’s municipal elections.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has said that Hezbollah “cannot continue with the same pace in all the security, military, political and cultural fields,” promising “a comprehensive evaluation of the previous period.”

“We will work on facing these challenges with the continuation of the resistance as a liberation project and rejecting all forms of occupation, naturalization and normalization according to our available capabilities, while improving what we can, along with our allies, to confront these challenges in various ways,” Qassem added, in an interview with the pro-Hezbollah Eqtidar news portal.

The army on Friday announced the arrest of two men who assaulted the imam of the mosque of the Mt. Lebanon town of Chbaniyeh in an incident apparently related to the sectarian violence between Druze and Sunnis in neighboring Syria.

President Joseph Aoun has stressed that the Lebanese Army is doing a “mighty job” and that its operations are still ongoing in the area south of the Litani River, despite the “geographic challenges and limited capabilities.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri held talks Wednesday in Ain el-Tineh with the new head of the ceasefire monitoring committee, U.S. major general Michael Leeney, who was accompanied by the committee’s outgoing head Major General Jasper Jeffers.