President Joseph Aoun on Tuesday expressed gratitude for the United States' support of Lebanon following his meeting in Washington with counterpart Donald Trump at the White House.

Kuwait said Tuesday that Iran had again attacked power and desalination plants critical to the tiny desert nation.

The statement from Kuwait’s Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy Ministry said that Tehran had struck the plants for a fourth day in a row on Monday night.

On the road to south Lebanon's coastal town of Naqoura, an Israeli flag hung over the deep blue sea, a stone's throw away from a metallic grid marking the Israeli-announced "security zone".

"Turn around, you don't have permission to pass," an Israeli soldier said through a loudspeaker to a convoy of journalists, including AFP, who joined a Christian NGO on an organized tour of still-inhabited villages in the occupied area.

President Joseph Aoun is set to meet with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, as pressure builds for Beirut to disarm Hezbollah, Israel's key condition before withdrawing from south Lebanon.

It comes a day after the United States, which has sponsored negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, announced the start of the implementation of an agreement granting the Lebanese army control over "pilot zones" in southern Lebanon.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Monday announced a maritime embargo of their foe Saudi Arabia, after the pair traded fire last week for the first time in years.

The rebels "declare a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of 'an eye for an eye,' effective immediately upon the issuance of this statement," military spokesman Yahya Saree said.

Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas announced Monday that it had elected Khalil al-Hayya, the group's lead negotiator in indirect ceasefire talks with Israel, as the new head of its political bureau.

"The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) announces the election of brother mujahid Khalil al-Hayya as head of the movement's political bureau, succeeding the martyred leader Yahya al-Sinwar," Hamas said in a statement. Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024 in Gaza.

Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni is set to travel to mediator Pakistan's capital on Monday, a Pakistani interior ministry source said.

The source confirmed to AFP that the minister would have talks with Pakistani officials but did not elaborate on whether it was linked to Pakistan's long-running mediation efforts to end fighting between the United States and Iran.

Iran urged the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Monday to condemn U.S. strikes that it said targeted the Darkhovin nuclear power plant under construction in the country's southwest.

"Iran... expects the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Board of Governors and the Director General of the IAEA, who from time to time makes political statements regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, to clearly state their position on this matter in condemning the U.S. crime," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said at a press conference in Tehran attended by AFP.

Iran said on Monday that diplomatic exchanges with the United States via mediators were ongoing despite U.S. military strikes on the country.

"We have been informed by mediators, we have received messages -- without going into details -- but the main point is that the diplomatic apparatus has been active in recent days and ideas have been conveyed to us by certain mediators," said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ismail Baghaei at a press conference in Tehran attended by AFP.

U.S. President Donald Trump and FIFA chief Gianni Infantino were met with resounding boos as they walked onto the pitch Sunday for the presentation ceremony after Spain won the World Cup.