Why is Israel still in southern Lebanon? A war to shape Lebanon's future At least one person has been killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA), as near-daily attacks by Israel continue despite a November ceasefire. The attack on Monday hit an excavator in the Shamsiyah area of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, killing its driver. Footage on social media, verified by Al Jazeera, showed emergency responders carrying the victim away on a stretcher. One drone targeted the town of Aitaroun on Monday afternoon while another bombed a house in Houmin al-Fauqa. No casualties were reported in those attacks.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has issued a stern warning to Israel, threatening a war with "no restraint and no rules and no ceilings" in case of a major Israeli offensive against Lebanon. Nasrallah's remarks on Wednesday come amid soaring tensions at the Lebanon-Israel border after Israeli officials reiterated that the country is ready for an all-out war against Hezbollah. "All what the enemy says and the threats and warnings the mediators bring – and what is being said in the Israeli media – about a war in Lebanon does not scare us," Nasrallah said in a speech via video feed. He said that Israel is the party that should be "scared". Israeli Foreign Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday raised the prospect of a major conflict with the Lebanese group after Hezbollah released surveillance drone footage showing major infrastructure and military sites in northern Israel.

Israel is ready for an "all-out war" in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah, officials have said. The claims from Israel's foreign minister and military late on Tuesday followed Hezbollah's release of threatening drone footage. The climbing tension conflicts with United States efforts to avert an escalation amid months of low-level hostilities across the Israel-Lebanon border. The nine-minute drone footage of the Israeli port city of Haifa filmed in daytime, showed civilian and military areas, including malls and residential quarters, in addition to a weapons manufacturing complex and missile defence batteries. Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded vehemently in a post on X, calling out Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for boasting about filming the ports of Haifa, which are operated by foreign companies from China and India.

A senior Hezbollah commander said the terrorist organization does not want an expanded war with Israel Tuesday, the same day that it launched a drone attack against an Israeli army base. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group, claimed the Tuesday attack was in retribution for an Israeli strike that killed Wissam al-Tawil, who commanded Hezbollah's Radwan forces. Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem released a televised speech stating that his group does not seek an all-out war with Israel, "but if Israel expands it, the response is inevitable to the maximum extent required to deter Israel." President Biden's administration has sought to prevent Israel's war against Hamas from boiling over into a regional conflict. Nevertheless, Iran's proxy terrorist groups have carried out more than 100 attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets since October.

Just 24 hours before he took to the podium on Wednesday, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's powerful armed group Hezbollah, was preparing to deliver a speech commemorating another of Israel's former arch foes, Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike four years ago to the day. But in the wake of the suspected Israeli assassination on Tuesday of Saleh al-Arouri, a top Hamas leader killed in the heart of Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut, Mr. Nasrallah revised his comments to commemorate not just one of his closest allies, but two. In a highly anticipated speech on Wednesday that gained new significance in the wake of Mr. al-Arouri's assassination, Hezbollah's leader denounced the attack in Lebanon's capital as a "dangerous" milestone, pledging revenge for the killing and threatening to meet any wider Israeli conflict with unrestrained warfare. "If the enemy considers waging a war against Lebanon, our battle will be without boundaries or rules," Mr. Nasrallah said. "We are not afraid of war. Those who think of going to war with us will regret it. War with us will come at a very, very, very high cost."

Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, the Tehran-backed Lebanese organization Hezbollah urgently met with Iraqi militia leaders, seeking to unite them in the face of a huge void left by their powerful mentor's death, two sources with knowledge of the meetings said. The meetings were meant to coordinate the political efforts of Iraq's often-fractious militias, which lost not only Soleimani but also Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a unifying Iraqi paramilitary commander, in the Jan. 3 attack at Baghdad airport, the sources said. While offering few details, two additional sources in a pro-Iran regional alliance confirmed that Hezbollah, which is sanctioned as a terrorist group by the United States, has stepped in to help fill the void left by Soleimani in guiding the militias. All sources in this article spoke on condition of anonymity to address sensitive political activities rarely addressed in public. Officials with the governments of Iraq and Iran did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the militia groups.

BEIRUT – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday he had warned Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani of the risk of assassination and met him in the Lebanese capital Beirut on New Year's Day before he was killed in a U.S. attack in Baghdad. Nasrallah, in a speech commemorating Soleimani, said he had told Iran's pre-eminent military commander some time ago of concern for his life. Soleimani was killed on Friday in a targeted U.S. drone strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport. "I told him … there is great focus on you in the American media, press and magazines and they're printing your pictures on the front page as'the irreplaceable general,' this is media and political priming for your assassination," Nasrallah said.

BAGHDAD – Iraq's Parliament called for the expulsion of U.S. forces from the country in reaction to the American drone attack that killed a top Iranian general, raising the prospect of a troop withdrawal that could cripple the battle against the Islamic State group and allow a resurgence of the extremists. Lawmakers approved a resolution asking the Iraqi government to end the agreement under which Washington sent troops more than four years ago to help fight ISIS. The bill is nonbinding and subject to approval by the Iraqi government but has the backing of the outgoing prime minister. But the vote was another sign of the blowback from the U.S. airstrike Friday that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and a number of top Iraqi officials at the Baghdad airport. Soleimani was the architect of Iran's proxy wars across the Mideast and was blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in roadside bombings and other attacks.

Five years from now, the U.S.' already overburdened mental health system may be short as many as 15,600 psychiatrists as the growth in demand for their services outpaces supply, according to a 2017 report from the National Council for Behavioral Health. But some proponents say that, by then, an unlikely tool--artificial intelligence--may be ready to help mental health practitioners mitigate the impact of the deficit. Medicine is already a fruitful area for artificial intelligence; it has shown promise in diagnosing disease, interpreting images and zeroing in on treatment plans. Though psychiatry is in many ways a uniquely human field, requiring emotional intelligence and perception that computers can't simulate, even here, experts say, AI could have an impact. The field, they argue, could benefit from artificial intelligence's ability to analyze data and pick up on patterns and warning signs so subtle humans might never notice them.

Five years from now, the U.S.' already overburdened mental health system may be short as many as 15,600 psychiatrists as the growth in demand for their services outpaces supply, according to a 2017 report from the National Council for Behavioral Health. But some proponents say that, by then, an unlikely tool--artificial intelligence--may be ready to help mental health practitioners mitigate the impact of the deficit. Medicine is already a fruitful area for artificial intelligence; it has shown promise in diagnosing disease, interpreting images and zeroing in on treatment plans. Though psychiatry is in many ways a uniquely human field, requiring emotional intelligence and perception that computers can't simulate, even here, experts say, AI could have an impact. The field, they argue, could benefit from artificial intelligence's ability to analyze data and pick up on patterns and warning signs so subtle humans might never notice them.