Live: Israel shells towns and razes homes in southern Lebanon

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett blamed Qatar for the ICC cases against Israeli leaders, and said he expects Israel leaders to call Qatar “an enemy”.

“They're killing us. They're killing our soldiers. Qatar is killing Israeli citizens,” Bennett said on Wednesday on an Israeli podcast.

He accused Qatar of financing the former ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who sought arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett blamed Qatar for the ICC cases against Israeli leaders, and said he expects Israel leaders to call Qatar “an enemy”. pic.twitter.com/PKAexNefxS

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 6, 2026

The Yemeni military said at least 17 soldiers and an officer were killed in Houthi attacks in Yemen's Marib and Hadramout.

"The Joint Operations Command assures the Yemeni people that the Armed Forces, in all their formations, continue to perform their duties with full readiness and efficiency, and that this cowardly attack will not deter them from fulfilling their national mission but will only increase their resolve and determination to complete their sacred duty of restoring state institutions and imposing sovereignty over all national territory," the Yemeni military wrote in a statement.

Israel’s Mossad chief, Roman Gofman, has sacked two top officials over a failed plan to topple Iran’s government, Israeli media reported.

According to Israel’s Channel 12 and Haaretz, one of the officials had served since December as the head of Mossad’s intelligence directorate, while the other was the head of the agency’s Iran division.

The reports say the two devised to remove Iran’s leadership by mobilising the country’s minority groups to rebel and whip up mass protests to oust the government - a plan which did not transpire.

A source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey will hold a summit on Friday in Saudi Arabia's Jeddah.

The agenda was not given, but the meeting comes as Iran and the US are locked in a showdown on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The Israeli army has fired artillery shells on the town of Hadatha in Bint Jbeil district, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday.

This comes as a new round of talks wrapped up in Rome between Israel and Lebanon for a framework agreement between the countries while Israel is escalating attacks on Lebanon.

A senior Saudi official told Reuters that intelligence reports indicated that Iraqi militias coordinating with Yemen's Houthis were preparing imminent attacks under the guidance of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attacks could target civilian and economic infrastructure, including energy facilities, ports and airports, and that Saudi Arabia had observed drones and missiles being moved, suggesting coordinated operations from the north and south of the country.

The official added that any planned attacks could be designed to "disrupt" de-escalation and diplomatic efforts in the region.

The US president Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US has “an unlimited supply” of weapons.

“We’re in very good shape,” Trump told reporters in Washington, adding that “we have literally massive amounts of ammunition” from all over the world.

This comes after Trump denied reports that he clashed with Defence Minister Pete Hegseth over munition supplies for the Iran war.

At least 58 people have been killed in attacks from the Houthis on Yemen's Saudi-backed forces, a military source told AFP on Thursday.

Yemen's Houthis earlier said that they conducted attacks on “Saudi military deployments” in Marib and Hadramout in response to Saudi Arabia's “large military buildup” in Yemen.

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday that he believes the war with Iran will be over soon.

"I think it's going to end pretty soon. I don't think they can go much longer," Trump said in the Oval Office in a reference to Iran.

Iran is currently negotiating a route through the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, and has denied that any talks have taken place with the US in recent days.

Iran has lost about 230 million cubic metres of gas on a daily basis due to US-Israeli attacks, President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview circulated by the IRNA news agency.

“Our enemies expected the country to collapse due to the pressures they have exerted,” Pezeshkian said, adding that such pressures have “reached their maximum”.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Thursday that Washington has pursued a “failed strategy” and called on the US to "acknowledge the facts and fulfill your commitments”.

In reference to Trump's earlier comments that the US had been preparing to launch what he described as “the biggest attack since World War II” before Iranian officials asked for negotiations, Ghalibaf called this “theatre diplomacy on a loop”.

“'Massive attack coming… wait, never mind, they want to negotiate.' That’s theater diplomacy on loop,” he wrote in a post to X.

“Massive attack coming… wait, never mind, they want to negotiate.”
That’s theater diplomacy on loop.

Using bullying + broken promises + fake news as leverage is a failed strategy.

Acknowledge the facts and fulfill your commitments. We don’t need more theater.

— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) August 6, 2026

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Saudi Arabia on Friday for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif, Erdogan's office announced on Thursday.

The leaders will discuss the US-Israeli war on Iran and its effects on the Strait of Hormuz. 

Three Palestinians were injured and one was detained on Thursday evening after Israeli settlers attacked a family east of the village of al-Taybeh, east of Ramallah, Wafa news has reported.

Local sources told Wafa that the family has been subjected to near-daily attacks by armed Israeli settlers for nearly three years, with the assaults intensifying over the past three months.

US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement on Thursday that talks between Lebanon and Israel were “fruitful” amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

“Lebanon and Israel are much closer to reaching an agreement on advancing and expanding the pilot zones process,” he said, as the latest round of direct talks, the seventh overall, just wrapped up in Rome, Italy.

Oman's transport ministry and environment authority said it was responding to an incident involving the Caroline Bezengi vessel, which is stranded near the Hallaniyat Islands off the southern governorate of Dhofar, to limit any potential environmental impact, Omani state media reported on Thursday.