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At least two people have been killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon, according to first responders and local media, amid growing concerns that the Israel-Hamas war could spread beyond Gaza.

Two people were killed in an Israeli strike on the town of Ainata on Monday, according to a first-responder organisation affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement and Lebanese state media.

It was not immediately clear if those killed were civilians.

The Israeli military said earlier that “terrorists fired towards several locations in northern Israel”.

The army said its artillery struck the source of the fire and hit posts which “terrorists used to carry out launches toward Israel”.

In a separate attack, Israeli forces shelled media teams and journalists in the Lebanese border village of Yaroun, official Lebanese news agency NNA reported.

Issam Mawasi, an Al Jazeera cameraman, was injured in the shelling, and the network’s broadcast vehicle was damaged.

Separately, the Israel Electric Corporation said an employee died on Monday after being wounded in a missile attack carried out the previous day by the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israeli forces from its stronghold in southern Lebanon after Israel launched an assault on Gaza last month in response to a Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Palestinian officials in Gaza say more than 11,200 people, including more than 4,600 children, have been killed since the Israeli assault began on October 7.

Around 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

The exchanges of fire along the Israel-Lebanon border mark the deadliest violence in the area since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

More than 70 Hezbollah fighters and 10 civilians have been killed in Lebanon, and 10 people including seven soldiers have been killed in Israel. Thousands more on both sides have fled shelling.

Until now, violence has largely been confined within a band of territory on either side of the border.

Israel has said it does not want war on its northern front as it seeks to topple Hamas in Gaza. The United States has said it doesn’t want conflict to spread around the region, sending two aircraft carriers to the area to deter Iran from getting involved.

But that has not stopped the escalating rhetoric from Hezbollah and Israel.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday that the Lebanon front would “remain active”, and said there was “a quantitative improvement” in the pace of the group’s operations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah on Monday not to broaden its attacks.

“This is playing with fire. Fire will be answered with much stronger fire. They should not try us, because we have only shown a little of our strength,” he said in a statement.

Asked at a news conference on Saturday about what Israel’s red line was, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “If you hear that we have attacked Beirut, you will understand that Nasrallah has crossed that line.”

‘Tit-for-tat’

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, in an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday, said he was reassured by the “rationalism” of Hezbollah so far.

“We are preserving self-restraint, and it’s up to Israel to stop its ongoing provocations in south Lebanon,” he said.

Lebanon took years to rebuild from the 2006 war and can ill afford another one, four years into a financial crisis that has impoverished many Lebanese and paralysed the state.

Israel has long seen Hezbollah as the biggest threat along its borders. The 2006 war killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin characterised the violence as “tit-for-tat exchanges between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israeli forces in the north”, predicting Israel would remain focused on the threat from Hezbollah “for the foreseeable future”.

“And certainly no one wants to see another conflict break out in the north on Israel’s border in earnest,” he told reporters in Seoul.

Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center said: “I can definitely see a wider escalation, but I am not sure about a full conflict that nobody wants.

“Nobody wants one on one hand, and I think the US is playing a strong role keeping things under control.”

Former Prime Minister David Cameron is back in front-line British politics, making a shock return as foreign minister in Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government.

The move comes after Sunak sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman after she wrote an article that accused the police of bias towards left-wing protesters.

So what does this mean for UK policy – at home and abroad?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Alex Deane – conservative commentator and a former Conservative Party aide

Lesley Riddoch – award-winning journalist, former radio and TV news presenter, and Scottish independence activist

Tim Bale – professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and former deputy director of UK in a Changing Europe

Delegates in Nairobi mulling two options: a wide-ranging strategy that would target plastics production or a limited approach focussed on waste management.

International delegates have convened in Kenya in the hopes of making further progress towards a landmark treaty to fight global plastic pollution.

Addressing the first day of the talks in the capital, Nairobi, on Monday, Kenyan President William Ruto said that time is running out to reach a deal before the end of 2023, a deadline set in March of last year.

“I urge all the negotiators to recall that 2024 is only six weeks away and [there] are only two other meetings to go,” Ruto said.

The meeting is taking place at the headquarters of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) as leaders try to address the scourge of pollution resulting from more than 400 million metric tonnes of plastic waste produced each year.

The UNEP says less than 10 percent of plastic waste is recycled, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature said at least 14 million metric tonnes of it makes its way into the world’s oceans.

Progress has been slow at previous summits, and delegates in Nairobi will have to decide between a wider focus on the production and life cycle of plastic or a more limited emphasis on waste management.

Countries such as Kenya have advocated for a firmer and more binding agreement whereas the powerful plastics industry and petrochemical suppliers such as Saudi Arabia have pushed for a more limited approach.

More than 2,000 delegates are attending the meeting, including representatives from the oil and gas industry, environmental organisations and civil society groups.

“The vast majority of countries are eager to advance the negotiations to get the job done,” said Pamela Miller, co-chairperson of the International Pollutants Elimination Network, a global public interest group.

“On the other hand, a small group of like-minded countries of mainly major fossil fuel, petrochemical and plastic exporters like Saudi Arabia and Russia are actively attempting to take us backwards,” she said.

Donald Trump’s eldest sister Maryanne Trump Barry has died at the age of 86.

Ms Trump Barry, a former federal judge, died at her home in Manhattan and was found early on Monday morning, according to reports.

The New York City Police Department said an 86-year-old woman was found unconscious and unresponsive inside the bedroom of a Fifth Avenue apartment and was later confirmed dead.

An investigation is ongoing, police said.

Mr Trump, 77 – who is facing a civil fraud trial in New York – is yet to comment on his sister’s death.

Ms Trump Barry, who was born in Queens, New York, in 1937, was the eldest child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump.

While working in the US Attorney’s Office, she was appointed to the US District Court for New Jersey by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

She was later appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia in 1999 by President Bill Clinton.

Ms Barry served in that role until 2017 until her younger brother was inaugurated as US president, according to the Associated Press.

Her retirement as an appellate judge in 2019 ended a civil misconduct inquiry following allegations in a New York Times article that she and her siblings, including then-President Trump, evaded inheritance taxes.

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She had stayed largely out of the spotlight during her brother’s presidency, but drew headlines after her niece, Mary Trump, revealed that she had secretly recorded her aunt while promoting a book that denounced the former president.

In the recordings, Ms Trump Barry could be heard sharply criticising her brother, at one point saying the former president “has no principles” and is “cruel”.

Mr Trump’s younger brother Robert Trump died in 2020 aged 71, while the former president’s first wife, Ivana Trump, died last year.

His older brother Fred Trump Jr died of a heart attack in 1981 aged 42.

Mr Trump’s only surviving sister is Elizabeth Trump Grau, 81.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned its operations in war-torn Gaza would shut down within two days due to fuel shortages as fighting rages between Israel and Hamas.

“The humanitarian operation in Gaza will grind to a halt in the next 48 hours as no fuel is allowed to enter Gaza,” UNRWA’s Gaza chief Thomas White wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

Israel launched a bombardment of Gaza on October 7 after Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

More than 11,200 people, including over 4,000 children, have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities,

After the Hamas attack, Israel cut off supplies of water, electricity, fuel and food to the territory of 2.4 million people, leading to shortages.

Dozens of aid trucks have been allowed in from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, but aid groups have warned the quantity of aid being delivered is nowhere near the level required.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, said about 39 percent of food needs were being met.

“In one of the governorates, people got one or two rounds of bread and a can of tuna for a family, and in Rafah, it was one or two rounds of bread and a can of cheese for the family,” he said.

More than two-thirds of the Palestinians living in Gaza have fled their homes since the war began.