By Raphael Satter

(Reuters) -An Israeli official accused of trying to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex outside Las Vegas has been ordered to appear via videolink next week after he missed his arraignment hearing on Wednesday, local media reported.

Tom Alexandrovich, a senior cybersecurity official with the Israeli government, was one of eight people arrested as part of a multi-week operation by Nevada and federal authorities targeting "child sex predators," according to an August 15 statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations Security Council will vote on Thursday to extend a long-running peacekeeping mission in Lebanon until the end of 2026, when the operation will then begin a year-long "orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal," diplomats said.

The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), established in 1978, patrols Lebanon's southern border with Israel. The mandate for the operation is renewed annually, and its current authorization expires on August 31.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, asked on Wednesday what the plan was for a Palestinian state, said there would not be any.

Saar made the comment to reporters following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington that the foreign minister described as "very good."

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; editing by Diane Craft)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) -A security agency controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said on Wednesday that they had uncovered a plot to assassinate PUK leader Pavel Talabani, sharing a video that purported to show six guards saying they had received an order to kill him.

KYIV (Reuters) -The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Wednesday he was in Riyadh along with security council chief Rustem Umerov ahead of talks later in the week with U.S. administration officials in New York.

Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the talks in Riyadh focused on paths to peace in Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia's participation in this process. Yermak said they met the Saudi defence minister and national security adviser.

(Reuters) -All United Nations Security Council members, except the United States, on Wednesday said the famine in Gaza was a “manmade crisis” and warned that the use of starvation as a weapon of war is banned under international humanitarian law.

In a joint statement, the 14 council members called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, a substantive surge of aid throughout Gaza, and for Israel to immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on aid delivery.

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump was presiding over a policy meeting on the Gaza war on Wednesday with input from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Trump Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, a senior White House official said.

Trump, top White House officials, Blair and Kushner were discussing all aspects of the Gaza issue, including escalating food aid deliveries, the hostage crisis, post-war plans and more, the official told Reuters.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Israel's military has concluded six Hamas members were killed in a strike on Nasser hospital in the south of the Gaza Strip on Monday, acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea told the Security Council on Wednesday.

The Israeli strike killedat least 20 people including journalists who worked for Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other outlets.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel asked a global hunger monitor on Wednesday to retract an assessment that found that Gaza City and surrounding areas are suffering from famine and that it will likely spread, dismissing the report as "deeply flawed".

TheIntegrated Food Security Phase Classification(IPC) system said on Friday that 514,000 people - close to a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza - are experiencing famine, with the numberdue to riseto 641,000 by the end of September.

By Jana Choukeir

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hundreds of people protested in southern Lebanon on Wednesday against a planned visit by U.S. envoy Thomas Barrack, a day after the envoy stirred anger in the country by publicly scolding Lebanese reporters.

Lebanon's state news agency said Barrack's visit to Tyre and the border town of Khiyam had been cancelled due to the demonstrations. Protesters carried banners reading "Death to America" and waved the flags of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and its Shiite ally, the Amal movement, according to social media footage and witnesses.