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NATO allies have agreed to fund military aid for Ukraine with 40 billion euros ($43 billion) next year, two Western European diplomats told Reuters on Wednesday, a week before the alliance's leaders are set to meet in Washington.

Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a drone strike in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, prompting the Lebanese militia to retaliate with a heavy rocket barrage across the border as international diplomats scrambled to prevent an all-out war.

The commander, Mohammad Naameh Nasser, also known as Abu Naameh, was among the highest-ranking Hezbollah fighters to have been killed since the militia began firing on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, the armed group at war with Israel in Gaza. He led Hezbollah’s Aziz unit, one of the group’s main fighting forces along the Lebanese border, according to the Israeli military and a senior Lebanese intelligence official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Hezbollah said it had fired 100 rockets at military targets over the border as part of an “initial response,” setting off sirens in communities across northern Israel. The Israeli military said that most of that barrage had fallen in open areas. The Iran-backed militia continued to claim retaliatory attacks into the evening.

TVNL Comment: Netanyahu wants a broader war that will set fire to the entire region. This is exactly as he allowed the October 7th attack to take place. So long as there is war, he stays in power and avoids being in jail.

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Russia's economy is completely dominated by its war in Ukraine, so much that Moscow cannot afford either to win or lose the war, according to one European economist.

Renaud Foucart, a senior economics lecturer at Lancaster University, pointed to the dire economic situation facing Russia as the war in Ukraine wraps up its second year.

Russia's GDP grew 5.5% year-over-year over the third quarter of 2023, according to data from the Russian government. But most of that growth is being fueled by the nation's monster military spending, Foucart said, with plans for the Kremlin to spend a record 36.6 trillion rubles, or $386 billion on defense this year.

"Military pay, ammunition, tanks, planes, and compensation for dead and wounded soldiers, all contribute to the GDP figures. Put simply, the war against Ukraine is now the main driver of Russia's economic growth" Foucart said in an op-ed for The Conversation this week.

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“If there is a cease-fire in Gaza, we will stop without any discussion,” Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in an interview with The Associated Press at the group’s political office in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hezbollah's participation in the Israel-Hamas war has been as a “support front” for its ally, Hamas, Kassem said, and “if the war stops, this military support will no longer exist.”

But, he said, if Israel scales back its military operations without a formal cease-fire agreement and full withdrawal from Gaza, the implications for the Lebanon-Israel border conflict are less clear.

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Ukrainian security officials on Monday said a plot to overthrow the federal government in Kyiv had been thwarted as Russia ramps up attacks on the capital city.

Four Ukrainian civilians were detained over the weekend on suspicion of planning an alleged coup by seizing Parliament and announcing their intent to replace military and civilian leadership, said the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) following an investigation that began in May.

Ukrainian officials have offered few details regarding the plot but said the "activists" were working under the guise of forming a peaceful rally in Kyiv on Sunday.

Despite dissident messages exchanged on social media, the majority of the participants of the event were allegedly unaware of the group’s intent to "force" the public to "choose a temporary government," claimed Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office in a Telegram post.

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The head of the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital has accused Israel of torturing him and other detainees, following his release after seven months in Israeli prisons and detention facilities.

Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, was among dozens of Palestinians freed and returned to Gaza on Monday, according to Israeli authorities.

The doctor, who had been held by Israel without charge since arrest at his workplace in November, said he and other prisoners were subjected to “almost daily torture” while in detention in Israel.

Mistreatment included assaults with batons and dogs, deprivation of food and medicine, as well as physical and psychological humiliation, Abu Salmiya said.

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