Washington cannot "compel" Israel to do anything, U.S. special envoy Thomas Barrack said in Beirut on Monday, in response to a reporter's question about Lebanese demands that the U.S. guarantees a halt to Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory.

Syria's new government sent troops to quell fighting between the Druze religious minority and Sunni Muslim tribes. Then Israel intervened, bombing Damascus.

US special envoy Tom Barrack said the White House "can't compel Israel to do anything" in Lebanon after he was asked whether Washington would guarantee the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the country's embattled south. "America is not here to compel Israel to do anything," Barrack told reporters on Monday.

US envoy Tom Barrack said Washington cannot force but only influence Israeli actions as he met Lebanese leaders in Beirut on Monday for more talks on disarming Hezbollah and stopping Israeli bombing.“The US has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything

Syria's Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence triggered by clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions. Earlier on Friday, an Israeli official said Israel agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area of southern Syria for the next two days.

Lebanon’s president says his country wants peace but not normalisation with Israel, as health authorities said an Israeli air strike killed one person in the south of the country. As well as causing one death on Friday, the drone attack on a car in Nabatieh district wounded five other people, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

"In light of the ongoing instability in southwest Syria, Israel has agreed to allow limited entry of the (Syrian) internal security forces into Sweida district for the next 48 hours," the official, who declined to be named,

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon has no plans to have normal relations with Israel at the present time, and Beirut’s main aim is to reach a “state of no war” with its southern neighbor, the country’s president said Friday.

U.S. special envoy Thomas Barrack said on Monday that when it comes to the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, the U.S. cannot compel Israel to do anything."The U.S. has no business in trying to compel Israel to do

BEIRUT—After more than 40 years of arbitrary detention, a French court on Thursday ordered the conditional release of Lebanese leftist activist Georges Abdallah, 74, who is being held in France on alleged charges of assassinating an Israeli diplomat and an American in 1982.