By Nayera Abdallah

BEIRUT, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The Ali al-Taher ridge in southern Lebanon, which is named after a Shi'ite Muslim scholar whose shrine sits at its summit, has become one of the most contested pieces of ground in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

The cluster of hills is not especially large. But what it overlooks in southern Lebanon — and what Hezbollah is suspected to have built beneath it — thrust it to the centre of the fight between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.

WHERE IS IT?

By Maya Gebeily

BEIRUT, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Iran has warned the United States that it would respond forcefully to an Israeli offensive on a mountainous ridge in southern Lebanon where Iranian military personnel are holed up alongside Hezbollah fighters, three officials briefed on the message told Reuters.

The message, delivered last month, highlightsIran's continued direct involvement in the ground fighting in southern Lebanon and its readiness to retaliate against Israeli attacks there as the regional war enters its seventh month.

WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick apologized on Thursday for stating that no Americans had died in the Iran war, acknowledging that 18 service members have been killed and he was thinking about Venezuela when he made the mistaken statement.

"I misspoke. Eighteen members of our military have died, and to those families my heart breaks and I am so very sorry for their loss. I was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died,"Lutnick said in a post on X.

Foreign fighters and support networks are fuelling the conflict in Sudan and worsening violence against civilians, a UN-backed investigation warned Thursday.

The United Nations' independent fact-finding mission on Sudan said foreign involvement was strengthening the military capabilities of the country's warring parties, enabling increasingly sophisticated military operations, with devastating consequences for ordinary people.

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Foreign weapons, military technology, fighters and logistical networks are helping sustain Sudan's conflict and expanding the warring parties' ability to strike distant civilian areas with drones, a U.N. fact-finding mission said on Thursday.

Sudan's war, which erupted in April 2023 following a power struggle between the military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has displaced more than 14 million people and created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

MADRID, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Spain has found no evidence to conclude that July's deadly border rush from Morocco into its enclave of Ceuta was orchestrated by Moroccan authorities, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday,countering allegations in a Spanish police report.

Speaking in parliament, Sanchez responded to claims in the report that emerged this week suggesting the entry of over 70,000 people into Ceuta was not a spontaneous migration but a planned effort to overwhelm border controls.

A Persian restaurant in Kuwait has removed any mention of Iran from its name, a sign of the pressure the Iranian community in the Gulf country has faced since the Middle East war erupted.

Following weeks of calm, Iran resumed strikes on Kuwait as the Islamic republic and the United States returned to open conflict in a war that has rattled the region and the global economy.

LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Britain's King Charles and his wife Queen Camilla will host Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq at Windsor Castle for a state visit next month, Buckingham Palace said on Thursday.

The visit from October 20 to 22 will come against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the Middle East since U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in February, which prompted retaliatory strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host U.S. bases.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Haseen Alwazeer

CAIRO/GAZA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - A group of farmers has been working to preserve Gaza's native crops by rebuilding a local seed bank that was destroyed during Israel's war in the enclave and by encouraging Palestinians to cultivate what little viable land they have left.

Most of Gaza's pre-war farmland lies in an area under Israeli military occupation. Gaza's entire 2 million population is penned into around 30% of the tiny enclave, much of which was laid to waste by two years of Israeli bombardment.

Iran said it hit US military bases in Kuwait and the UAE on Thursday, vowing to avenge a wedding attack it blamed on Washington as US Vice President JD Vance said the strike was being investigated.

The new clashes, which began with US raids on Sunday, have deepened the impasse in the six-month war, as Iran maintains a stranglehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz and Washington presses its counter-blockade of Iranian ports.