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Israel has uprooted 370,000 children in Lebanon: UN

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• Global body warns country at risk of ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ • Tel Aviv carries out fresh strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs • Hezbollah says its fighters clashed with Israeli forces at two villages in the south GENEVA / BEIRUT: More than 370,000 children have been forced from their homes in Lebanon in just three weeks, as intensified Israeli strikes and mass evacuation orders trigger one of the fastest and largest population displacements in the country’s history, UN officials said on Friday. Israel has launched heavy air strikes and a ground assault on Lebanon in parallel with the war in Iran, after Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters fired into Israel in solidarity with Tehran on March 2. Unicef’s country representative Marcoluigi Corsi said the scale of displacement was “staggering”, with 19,000 children uprooted daily, many for the second or third time since previous escalations just 15 months ago. Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency has warned that Lebanon is facing a deepeni...
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US can only confirm about a third of Iran’s missile arsenal destroyed, sources say

The United States can only determine with certainty that it has destroyed about a third of Iran’s vast missile arsenal as the US and Israeli war on the country ​nears its one-month mark, according to five people familiar with the US intelligence. The status of around another third is less clear but bombings likely damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and ‌bunkers, four of the sources said. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the information. One of the sources said the intelligence was similar for Iran’s drone capability, saying there was some degree of certainty about a third having been destroyed. The assessment shows that while most of Iran’s missiles are either destroyed or inaccessible, Tehran still has a significant missile inventory and may be able to recover some buried or damaged missiles once fighting stops. The intelligence stands in contrast to President Donald Trump’s public remarks on Thursday tha...
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Rubio says war on Iran to last ‘weeks not months’, no US ground troops needed

The war in the Gulf is still expected to last weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday. Rubio told reporters after meeting G7 counterparts in France that Washington was “on or ahead of schedule in that operation, and expect to conclude it at the appropriate time here — a matter of weeks, not months.” While he said Washington could achieve its aims without ground troops, he acknowledged that it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge”. Washington has dispatched two contingents of thousands of Marines to the region, the first of which is due to arrive around the end of March aboard a huge amphibious assault ship. The Pentagon is also expected to deploy thousands of elite airborne soldiers. The deployments have raised concern that an air war that has already disrupted global ene...
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Iranian football players hold schoolbags in solidarity with girls killed in strike on Minab school

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Iran’s men’s national football team wore black armbands and held schoolbags as their ‌anthem played ahead of a match in Turkey on Friday, in what a team official said was a protest over the killing of schoolgirls on the first day of the Iran war. Iran were playing a friendly against Nigeria in the Mediterranean ​resort town of Belek ahead of the World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada, ​at which their participation is in doubt due to the conflict. Iran players line up before the match as school bags are laid in memory of the victims of the girls school bombing in Minab, Iran, March 27, 2026. — Reuters The men lined up ⁠holding pink and purple bags with ribbons on them — a reference to the attack on the ​Shajareh Tayyebeh School that Tehran says killed more than 175 people, including children and teachers, on the ​first day of joint US-Israeli strikes on the country. Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, a vice president of the Iranian football federation, told Reuters that the players had ...
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Federal Constitutional Court asserts it is not bound by Supreme Court rulings

• Justice Rizvi says ‘precedential hierarchy’ stands restructured after 27th Amendment • Court will follow earlier jurisprudence if not incompatible with evolved constitutional values ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has dispelled the impression that it was unconditionally bou­nd by Supreme Court pronouncements, a position that was not necessarily required under the constitutional framework. Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi explained that frequent references to Supreme Court judgements in FCC decisions might otherwise create a mistaken belief that the FCC was irrevocably bound by such rulings. The judge had made these observations in a judgement upholding the validity of a marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man, while dismissing a habeas corpus petition filed by her father seeking the recovery of his daughter. The judgement explained that Article 189 of the Constitution, which formerly accorded binding force to the judgements of the Supreme Court upon ...
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War Diary Day 27: Multifront escalation appears imminent as Trump’s 5-day pause expires

On 27th day of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the conflict has continued to be fully kinetic with no sign of de-escalation, even as US President Donald Trump’s five-day pause expires on Friday. Meanwhile, the overall trajectory of the conflict points towards an imminent widening of hostilities across multiple theatres. Over the past 24 hours, direct strikes inside Iran intensified. Multiple explosions were reported across central, southern and eastern Tehran, with air defence systems activated across the capital, while additional strikes hit Khorramabad, triggering blackouts and being followed by rescue operations. Reports also indicated damage in areas where residences and infrastructure are located in Mashhad. Iran’s response, both directly and through its regional network of allies, showed a marked escalation in tempo and scale. Missile and drone strikes continued against Israeli targets, with reports suggesting improved penetration rates against air defences and expanded targetin...
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US judge questions block on Maduro’s use of Venezuelan funds for defence

A US judge questioned on Thursday whether the US can bar Venezuela from funding Nicolas Maduro’s legal defence without violating his US constitutional rights, but stopped short of dismissing drug-trafficking charges against the ousted Venezuelan president facing trial in New York. Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, wore beige prison garb to the hearing in Manhattan federal court over two months after US military forces captured them in a surprise raid on Caracas and ferried them to American soil. Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have pleaded not guilty to charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy and have been jailed in Brooklyn pending trial. They had asked US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the charges, saying their inability to rely on Venezuelan public funds due to US sanctions on Venezuela was interfering with their right to have a lawyer of their choosing under the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution. All criminal defendants in the US have constitutional rights ...
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