NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - An end to Russia's war in Ukraine should abide by international law, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.

"I believe we are still far from a solution," Guterres said at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the depths of the Cold War.The United States is trying to broker an end to the conflict.

KABUL, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The shooting of National Guard members in Washington, D.C., over which an Afghan immigrant has been charged, has nothing to do with Afghanistan's people or its government, Afghan Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said on Wednesday.

Muttaqi's comments are the first on the incident by the Afghan Taliban government, and come a week after events in Washington when suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal is accused of opening fire on guard members, killing one and critically wounding another.

GAZA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - With 70,000 dead, countless injured, hundreds of thousands of people homeless and whole districts laid to waste, the task of rebuilding Gaza is almost beyond comprehension.

But at a handful of sites where the enclave's most valuable historical monuments have been severely damaged, workers are already busy with shovels, trying to dig out the few surviving remnants of the past.

A Libyan prison boss accused of overseeing murder, rape, and torture at a notorious detention centre appeared at the International Criminal Court Wednesday to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Khaled Mohamed Ali El Hishri, 47, sat impassively dressed in a dark blue jacket and light blue shirt, confirming his name and date of birth before the three-woman judging panel.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Alexander Cornwell

CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Hamas said it will hand over a body of a hostage on Wednesday, as Israel said it would allow Gaza's gateway to Egypt to open in the next few days so that Palestinians who need medical care could leave the war-ravaged territory.

The handover of the last two hostages' bodies in Gaza would complete a key condition of the initial part of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the two-yearGaza war, which also entails the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opening in both directions.

By Catherine Cartier

BEIRUT, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Filipina worker Loren Capobres said the world stood still when she kissed Pope Leo's hand this week in Lebanon, but hopes his message for peace will linger after his departure, leading to better working conditions and a lasting peace in the country.

Capobres, who is Catholic and has worked in Lebanon for 17 years, met Leo on Monday, alongside priests and other church volunteers on his first overseas trip as pope, in which he called on the Middle East's leaders to reject the horror of war.

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Israel and Lebanon sent new representatives to a military committee monitoring a truce between the countries, top officials from both said on Wednesday, in a move set to expand the scope of talks between the long-time foes.

The meeting was a step towards a months-long U.S. demand that the two countries broaden talks beyond monitoring the 2024 ceasefire, in line with U.S. President Donald Trump's broader agenda of peace agreements across the Middle East.

ANKARA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Turkey demanded an explanation from Iraqi Kurdish officials after former leader Masoud Barzani arrived in a mainly Kurdish Turkish border region last weekend surrounded by heavily armed and uniformed guards.

Barzani, who was president of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government from 2005-17 and remains Iraqi Kurdistan's most powerful figure, visited the Cizre district in southeast Turkey's Sirnak province for a symposium on a Kurdish poet. It was also attended by Turkish officials, including a deputy interior minister.

The couples walked hand in hand, the brides in traditional embroidered Palestinian white and red dresses adorned with red ribbons, the grooms walked beside them in black suits and ties.

But the backdrop told a different story: dilapidated buildings, piles of concrete and rubble -- the scars of two years of conflict in the Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, 54 couples tied the knot in a mass wedding ceremony in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza -- a defiant celebration of life amid the wreckage of war.

Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades on Wednesday under the auspices of a year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism, though Lebanon's premier cautioned the new diplomatic contact did not amount to broader peace discussions.

The two sides met at the UN peacekeeping force's headquarters in Lebanon's Naqura near the border with Israel, where the guarantors of the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah regularly convene.