By Johan Ahlander

STOCKHOLM, April 27 (Reuters) - Global military spending rose 2.9% in 2025 despite a 7.5% decline in the United States as President Donald Trump halted new financial military aid to Ukraine, a report by a conflict think-tank showed on Monday.

Expenditure increased to $2.89 trillion in 2025, rising for the 11th consecutive year and taking spending as a share of global gross domestic product (GDP) to 2.5% - its highest level since 2009, according to the data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Global military spending reached nearly $2.9 trillion in 2025, marking an 11th consecutive year of growth, researchers said Monday, as insecurity and rearmament fuelled defence budgets.

The three top spenders -- the United States, China and Russia -- spent a combined total of $1.48 trillion, just over half of global expenditure.

Spending rose by 2.9 percent compared with 2024, despite a reduction by the US, the world's biggest spender, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

April 26 (Reuters) - Israeli strikes killed 14 people and wounded 37 on Sunday, Lebanon's health ministry said, as the Israeli military warned residents to leave seven towns beyond the "buffer zone" it occupied before a ceasefire that has failed to fully halt hostilities.

Sunday's death toll included two children and two women, the health ministry added in a statement. Israel said one of its soldiers was also killed as a fragile ceasefire came under further strain.

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said in an interview on Fox News' "The Sunday Briefing" on Sunday that Iran can reach out to the United Stated if it wants to negotiate an end to the war between the two countries.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by Caitlin Webber)

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid announced Sunday they will run on a joint list in this year's elections, in a move aimed at unseating incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I am pleased to announce that tonight, together with my friend Yair Lapid, I am taking the most Zionist and patriotic step we have ever taken for our country," Bennett said in a joint televised statement with Lapid.

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM, April 26 (Reuters) - Two of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's most formidable political rivals said on Sunday they were joining forces in a bid to oust his coalition government in the upcoming election expected later this year.

The former prime ministers - right-wing Naftali Bennett and centrist Yair Lapid - issued statements announcing the merger of their parties, Bennett 2026 and There is a Future.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta

CAIRO/WEST BANK, April 26 (Reuters) - Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said on Sunday, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the Gaza Strip run by rival Hamas.

Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006 and the first Palestinian polls since the Gaza war began more than two years ago with Hamas' cross‑border attack on southern Israel.

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the urgent need to get shipping moving again in the Strait of Hormuz during a call on Sunday, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

"The leaders discussed the urgent need to get shipping moving again in the Strait of Hormuz, given the severe consequences for the global economy and cost of living for people in the UK and globally," the spokesperson for Starmer's office said in a statement.

The latest developments in the Middle East war:

- Iran FM to meet Putin -

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Saint Petersburg early on Monday and is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian and Iranian state media reported.

The expected meeting comes off the back of whirlwind visits to Islamabad, Muscat and Islamabad again in recent days.

- Israeli soldier killed -

The Israeli army said one of its troops was killed "during combat" in south Lebanon, where a ceasefire has been in place since mid-April.

A Syrian court conducted the first hearing Sunday in the trial of ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad and senior figures from his government, one of whom appeared in person.

Assad and his brother Maher have fled Syria and will be tried in absentia, but one of their relatives, former security official Atif Najib, was in the dock in handcuffs.

"Today we begin the first trials of transitional justice in Syria," judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan declared as he opened the session.