The examination was conducted by Professor Alon Hershko, head of internal medicine at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. Following further tests, Netanyahu's condition was defined as good, and he is currently receiving intravenous fluids to treat dehydration resulting from the illness.

In accordance with his doctors' instructions, the prime minister will rest at home for the next three days and continue to manage state affairs from there.

In late December, Netanyahu underwent successful prostate surgery at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, which led to the postponement of one of the hearings in his ongoing trial at the time.

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Hezbollah declared Sunday morning the commencement of its retaliation for the killing of its military chief, Fouad Shukr, near Beirut in July. The Lebanese terror group stated that its "military operation" for the day had "concluded for today," adding that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, would deliver a speech later to counter Israeli statements.

According to Hezbollah, the group launched 320 rockets at 11 targets in northern Israel, including the Meron and Ein Zeitim military bases and a series of border outposts. Lebanese media reported additional Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon. There were also reports of a vehicle being hit in Al-Khiam, with casualties reported at the scene.

Video: IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari speaks about the operation / Credit: IDF

The Al-Mayadeen network, which is sympathetic to Hezbollah, described the group's response as "successful." The channel dismissed Israeli claims of a preemptive strike as a "military falsehood" and "internal deception of the public."

Video: PM Netanyahu speaks about the latest escalation with Hezbollah / Credit: GPO

The Lebanese outlet further claimed that Hezbollah's operation involved drones striking a "vital target" alongside the rocket barrage, which it said was intended to overwhelm Israel's Iron Dome defense system. The channel insisted that Hezbollah had hit a significant target deep inside Israeli territory. A source within Hezbollah told the Qatari Al-Arabi network that there were no casualties from Israeli attacks on over 30 targets because they had been evacuated in advance. The source also claimed that the group had struck two key targets in northern Tel Aviv, details of which would be announced later.

Lebanese media described the morning's events as the most extensive attacks in southern Lebanon since the start of the current conflict. Targets in the Tyre and Bint Jbeil areas were reportedly hit, along with numerous towns near the border. Casualties were reported in these attacks.

Al-Manar, a Lebanese news network affiliated with Hezbollah, reported the launch of a "military operation in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip." The network claimed that a drone was sent towards the Hermon outpost and that hundreds of rockets were fired towards the Galilee region. The channel's correspondents also reported Israeli Air Force strikes across southern Lebanon.

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South Africa asked the top UN court on Thursday to order a halt to the Rafah offensive as part of its case in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip, saying the Palestinian people faced "ongoing annihilation," despite these being baseless accusations. Israle, meanwhile, vowed to press ahead with the Rafah operation, which has inched forward slowly.

The hearings at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, come after South Africa last week asked for additional emergency measures to protect Rafah, a southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians. It also asked the court to order Israel to allow unimpeded access to Gaza for UN officials, organizations providing humanitarian aid, and journalists and investigators. It claimed that Israel has so far ignored and violated earlier court orders, despite this being false. "The key point today is that Israel's declared aim of wiping Gaza from the map is about to be realized," said South Africa's legal representative Vaughan Lowe, told the panel of judges.

"Further, evidence of appalling crimes and atrocities is literally being destroyed and bulldozed, in effect wiping the slate clean for those who've committed these crimes and making a mockery of justice," he said. South Africa was presenting arguments in support of its request for additional emergency measures on Thursday. Israel, which has denounced South Africa's claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday. In previous filings it stressed it had stepped up efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza as the ICJ had ordered.

"We are wearing Hamas down," Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said, announcing that more troops would be deployed in Rafah, where he said several tunnels had been destroyed. Israel says four Hamas battalions are now in Rafah along with hostages abducted during the Oct. 7 assault, but faces pressure from the United States, Europe and the United Nations not to invade the city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians are sheltering.

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Yoga enthusiasts in India's capital New Delhi got an extra dosage of puppy-cuteness during their yoga class, ahead of this year's Valentine's Day.

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Paws and Poses, which specializes in yoga sessions paired with dogs across India, held a Valentine's Day-themed course on Sunday, featuring 11 rescue puppies, including golden retrievers and a shih tzu, all up for adoption.

Video: Credit: Reuters

"It's my first time and I think I found my perfect Valentine, because it's Valentine's week," said class participant Aditi, while holding a golden retriever puppy.

The session lasted for about an hour and was open to couples and singles alike.

While some hardline Hindu groups protest against celebrations of St. Valentine's Day in India, calling them immoral and a corruption of the country's ancient civilization, the year's most romantic day has become increasingly popular, especially in urban areas, led by retailers who had jumped onto the bandwagon.

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Fernanda Quiroga still remembers how Lionel Messi played soccer in what were then dirt roads around their working class neighborhood in Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city.

"(Messi) was always kicking something, a ball, a bottle cap," said Quiroga, who at 35 is the same age as the captain of Argentina's national soccer team. "The memory I have of him because he lived right in front of my house, is going to buy sweet pastries at his grandmother's around the block and he was always kicking something."

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Excitement for Sunday's World Cup final, when Argentina will face defending champion France in Qatar, is rising fast and anxiety is running particularly high in Messi's hometown as many are hoping this will be the year when Messi finally wins the one major trophy that has been missing from his illustrious career.

"Even though it pains us all, it's been said this is Leo's last World Cup, so we're all hoping he wins it, I think more for him than for the national team itself," Quiroga said. "I think what weighs more this time around is that we want him to get it because he has generated so much love and respect."

After beating Croatia in the semifinals Tuesday, Messi said Sunday's match would likely be his last in a World Cup.

The neighborhood popularly known as La Bajada has turned into a sort of altar for Messi with murals and graffiti that praise the soccer star.

"From another galaxy and from my neighborhood," reads graffiti that is seemingly ubiquitous in the area.

A large mural of Messi looking up at the sky is painted on the side of his old house that still belongs to his family.

"The little guy was very spicy. If he got mad, he grabbed the ball and took it away," said Marcelo Almada, a 37-year-old construction worker who played soccer with Messi in the streets around the neighborhood where he still lives. "He didn't like to lose … but he was a very good kid."

With the World Cup, "there has been an explosion in the neighborhood," where "we're all like brothers," he added, noting that after every Argentina victory people celebrate in the streets until the early hours of the morning.

The neighborhood has also turned into a place of pilgrimage, with fans from all over the world coming to visit Messi's old house and the small soccer field in the corner where he started to learn the skills that would eventually turn him into an all-time great.

"I've been a fan of Barcelona and Messi since I was a little boy and … my dream is to see Messi win (the World Cup)," said 23-year-old Niv Reznik, an Israeli who traveled to Argentina with a group of friends to watch the tournament in the homeland of the soccer star who played 17 seasons with Barcelona.

When Reznik and his friends got to Messi's house, one of them kneeled and waved his hands in ovation.

A few blocks away, another person who is hoping for a Messi victory is 55-year-old Andrea Liliana Sosa, who was Messi's math and science teacher in fifth and sixth grade.

"He was a quiet and dutiful student, responsible with what he had to do for school and well loved by his classmates … especially during the breaks to play ball," Sosa said in one of the classrooms of the school that has chipped paint across many of its walls. "He was very focused on soccer.

"(A victory Sunday) would be like the cherry that he's missing, so let's hope he makes it, but he has done enough already to be recognized and loved by everyone," she added.

School children are living the World Cup "with a beautiful passion" and want Argentina to win "for Messi," said Milena Fernández, a 13-year-old student who was standing in front of a large mural of the soccer star on the school's grounds.

Across the street from the school, another large mural of Messi adorns the side of a residential building that has also turned into a place of pilgrimage for fans.

"We've even seen people praying here," said 21-year-old Valentina Rota, who lives in the building. "There's a whole feeling of belonging because he was born around the corner, he's one of us, he's a neighbor."

Messi, and the national team as a whole, have managed to raise the hope and optimism of Argentines in a country that has been stuck in economic doldrums for years with one of the world's highest inflations rates, closing in on almost 100% per year, and where close to four of every 10 people live in poverty.

"Everyone wants Messi to win and that generates a community, a very pleasant feeling that is very infrequent in Argentina, which is always fighting, divided, angry, frustrated," said Diego Schwarzstein, an endocrinologist who treated Messi for growth hormone deficiency until he left for Barcelona at 13 after the European club promised to pay for his costly treatment.

In Rosario, a city marred by drug violence, that feeling seems even more stark.

"You forget a little bit about the murders, the robberies and all other things that are happening," Sosa said. "This distracts us a little bit."

It isn't, of course, just about a distraction. For those who have followed Messi's career from the beginning, a victory Sunday would mean the culmination of lifelong work considering the soccer star himself has talked about the importance of winning a World Cup title.

"Despite the fact that he's now a rock star, has a beautiful family, a gorgeous wife, a bulky bank account and lots of popularity, his path was not covered in rose petals," Dr. Schwarstein said. "Those of us who know that path, and know the importance this Cup has for him, profoundly want him to have it."

In La Bajada, residents are hopeful that if Messi wins on Sunday he will come back to his old home for a visit.

"We all have the dream that he will come back," Quiroga said. "It's a very strong wish, especially for the youngest who've heard that we all know him and they want to meet him, too. There are huge expectations for him to come back and I think that some day it will happen, whether it be now or later. This is his house, his family's house, let's hope it happens."

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Social media platform Parler, which has gone dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content, may never get back online, said its CEO John Matze.

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As a procession of business vendors severed ties with the two-year-old site following the storming of the US Capitol last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when or if it will return.

"It could be never," he said. "We don't know yet."

But Matze later stated: "I am an optimist. It may take days, it may take weeks but Parler will return and when we do we will be stronger."

Matze said that Parler was talking to more than one cloud computing service but refused to disclose names, citing the likelihood of harassment for the companies involved. He said the best thing would be if Parler could get back on Amazon.com Inc.

On Monday, Parler, which claims it had over 12 million users, filed a lawsuit against Amazon's cloud computing division.

Matze said its relationship with Amazon appeared to deteriorate overnight and without much warning, an assessment that Amazon disputes in legal filings.

In another court filing Wednesday, Parler said that Amazon had not provided proof that the platform was used to incite and organize the Jan. 6 US Capitol siege. It called Amazon's termination of its services "catastrophic."

Disinformation researchers have said far-right groups that appeared at the riot maintained a vigorous online presence on alternative platforms including Parler, where they spread violent rhetoric ahead of the unrest.

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The United States on Wednesday announced a sweeping new sanctions package on Iran targeting a foundation controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Washington accused Iranian officials of human rights abuses a year after a deadly crackdown on anti-government demonstrators.

The sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Department marked the latest action to reinforce the "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran pursued by US President Donald Trump's administration and came just over two months before he is due to leave office after his Nov. 3 election loss.

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They also come on the heels of a UN nuclear watchdog report saying that Iran has begun feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas feedstock into the advanced IR-2m uranium-enriching centrifuges installed at its underground plant at Natanz.

The department imposed the sanctions on what it described as a key patronage network for the supreme leader. It said it blacklisted the Bonyad Mostazafan, or the Foundation of the Oppressed, which is controlled by Khamenei, as well as 10 individuals and 51 entities it said were associated.

The charitable foundation – an economic, cultural, and social welfare institution – has amassed vast amounts of wealth to the detriment of the rest of the Iranian economy and controls hundreds of companies and properties confiscated since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

"Iran's Supreme Leader uses Bonyad Mostazafan to reward his allies under the pretense of charity," US. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement. "The United States will continue to target key officials and revenue generating sources that enable the regime's ongoing repression of its own people."

The Treasury Department also slapped sanctions on Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, accusing his ministry of playing a role in serious human rights abuses against Iranians, including during the November 2019 protests.

The crackdown a year ago may have been the bloodiest repression of protesters in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

Reuters reported last year that about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest that started on Nov. 15, 2019. The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian interior ministry officials, included at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police.

Iran's Interior Ministry has said around 225 people were killed during the protests, which erupted after state media announced that gas prices would rise by as much as 200% and the revenue would be used to help needy families.

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The decision now moves to the cabinet and then to the Knesset for final approval, but it is expected to be fast tracked by early next week, with the lockdown taking effect by next Friday.

Before the vote on the matter late Thursday, the coronavirus forum was asked to deliberate on a variety of options. Gamzu and officials in the Health Ministry presented the lockdown option as the best means of tackling the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has begun to spiral out of control with case records being broken almost daily.

Under the emerging decision, which was favored by Gamzu despite being potentially harmful to the economy, the shutdown of the businesses and other public venues will be along the lines of the measures imposed several months ago.

Gamzu has been pushing for this harsh measure in light of the upcoming surges in community spread and deaths from COVID-19. In recent days some 3,000 new cases have been recorded on a daily basis. If approved the measure would see Israelis being forced to stay at home or within a set distance from their residence and virtually all non-essential commercial activity would cease. This would span the month of the High Holy Days, taking effect on Sept 15 and ending on Oct. 12.

The lockdown's primary goal is to ensure emergency rooms won't reach overcapacity, as well as to lower the morbidity rate. The lockdown, if approved as proposed, will be particularly stringent during the High Holy Days, when families traditionally hold large meals.

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