By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, May 29 (Reuters) - An average of 11 children have been killed every 24 hours on average in Lebanon, as Israel expanded strikes across the country in spite of a ceasefire being in place.

Heavy Israeli ⁠strikes hit towns and villages in southern Lebanon overnight on Wednesday and into Thursday, after Israel declared a new swathe of the area "a combat zone".

On Thursday, an Israeli strike hit a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut amid a ceasefire that has failed to halt fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

Sardar Azmoun is Iran's third top scorer in history with a successful club career behind him but is set to miss out on the 2026 World Cup in an exclusion shadowed by political controversy.

Azmoun, 31, is not part of the Iranian squad that has been preparing in Turkey for the World Cup and only a sensational last minute recall would see him join his teammates.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, May 29 (Reuters) - Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said his country had been added to a U.N. blacklist of sexual violence in conflict zones, alongside Hamas.

"This is a political decision! Disconnected from the facts and reality!" Danny Danon said in a post on X, referring to a report due to be published soon. Danon was informed about it during a phone call with the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a post on X by the Israeli mission to the U.N. said.

PARIS, May 29 (Reuters) - France has asked for the public prosecutor to investigate the treatment of French nationals who were part of a recent activist flotilla heading for Gaza, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Friday.

"Based on a report I requested from our Consul General in Turkey, who informed me of sexual violence, exposure to the cold, beatings, and repeated humiliation of French nationals, all of these acts are likely to constitute criminal offenses (and) I decided yesterday to refer the matter to the public prosecutor," Barrot told France Inter radio.

By Tom Balmforth, Gram Slattery, Humeyra Pamuk and Lucy Papachristou

LONDON/WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - Russia has intensified covert efforts to undermine the leader of Armenia’s bid for re-election next month, fearing his victory could lock in the former Soviet republic’s realignment with the West, according to Western intelligence and government officials.

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump finds himself in a bind as he seeks to end the war against Iran: he is under pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and get U.S. gasoline prices down but at the same time faces a potential backlash from Iran hawks in his own party over any concessions to Tehran.

WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. said on Thursday it has imposed new sanctions on Iran's military oil trade, even as Washington and Tehran reached a tentative agreement to extend their ceasefire and lift restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Treasury Department said it had sanctioned eight vessels involved in transporting Iranian crude oil and petroleum products to global markets. The vessels included the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Flora, the Comoros-flagged crude oil tanker Hauncayo and the Panama-flagged tanker Ill Gap.

WIENER NEUSTADT, Austria, May 28 (Reuters) - An Austrian court on Thursday sentenced a 21-year-old who admitted planning a foiled Islamist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024 to 15 years in prison, finding him guilty of various mainly terrorism-related offences.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy)

By Andreea Popescu and Rami Ayyub

JERUSALEM, May 28 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had directed Israel's military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70% of the Palestinian territory, where the population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast.

Israel effectively controls an estimated 64% of the tiny coastal Strip, bombarded to ruins by Israel's two-year military assault that followed the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Syria's energy ministry warned on Thursday of rising water levels on the Euphrates River after flooding in the north and east following increased flows from neighbouring Turkey and recent rains.

The ministry said it was monitoring the situation on the Euphrates "in light of the significant and unprecedented increase in water flows from the Turkish side".

It said the increase was due to "the abundance of the current rainy season and the opening of floodgates at dams located along the river in Turkish territory".