Israel and Lebanon to renew ceasefire and continue talks this month

Several Lebanese soldiers, including an officer, were killed in an Israeli strike targeting their military vehicle

on the Khardali-Nabatieh road in south Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on Saturday.

The Lebanese army has historically avoided involvement in

confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel and has not engaged

Israel in the current conflict.

This as Israel and Lebanon has agreed to renew a ceasefire

with the aim of continuing talks later this month.

Plumes of smoke from Israeli shelling over the village of Kfar Tebnit.

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to renew their shaky ceasefire

with the aim of continuing talks later this month for a comprehensive peace deal.

The US-brokered agreement - announced in a joint statement

by the US, Israel and Lebanon on Wednesday came after Israeli forces made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than a quarter century.

The fighting in Lebanon where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

This as the United Nations remembered the life of a

Serbian peacekeeper who was killed by a mortar strike

in Lebanon this week. Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix said,

"Yesterday, we also announced that yet another peacekeeper was killed in Lebanon, Sergeant Milovan Jovanovic from Serbia was the seventh UNIFIL peacekeepers killed since March 2026 In Lebanon. He would have turned 37 tomorrow.

He died from critical injuries, sustained when mortar shells struck his position. All these attacks against peacekeepers are unacceptable."

Lacroix also called on member states to increase funding for peacekeeping missions.

"The work of our peacekeepers matter. It is worth defending.

Peacekeeping is worth the investment. I know we all like data,

so here are some numbers to illustrate the point. At this moment, UN peacekeeping, the entire budget, which is $5.38 billion. $5.38 billion. That's the budget for one year. The same amount is spent in 16 hours, on global military spending. So it's not even a full day. And if you want another measure, the budget of peacekeeping for one year

for all our operations is less than half the amount it costs to organise the upcoming FIFA World Cup."