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The Israeli military published for the first time a map of its new deployment line inside Lebanon on Sunday, bringing dozens of mostly abandoned Lebanese villages under its control, ​days after a ceasefire with Lebanon took effect.

There was no immediate comment from Lebanese officials or ‌from Hezbollah. Israel and Lebanon agreed on Thursday to a US-backed ceasefire in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The deal, which followed the first direct talks in decades between Israel and Lebanon on April 14, is meant to enable broader US-Iran negotiations, ​but with Israeli forces maintaining positions deep inside southern Lebanon.

Stretching east to west, the deployment line ​on the map runs 5-10 kilometres deep from the border into Lebanese territory, ⁠where Israel has said that it plans to create a so-called buffer zone.

Israeli forces have destroyed Lebanese ​villages in the area, claiming their aim is to protect northern Israeli towns from Hezbollah attacks. It has ​created buffer zones in Syria and in Gaza, where it controls more than half the enclave.

“Five divisions, alongside Israeli navy forces, are operating simultaneously south of the forward defence line in southern Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah … infrastructure sites ​and to prevent direct threats to communities in northern Israel,” the military said in a statement accompanying ​the map.

Asked whether people who fled the Israeli strikes would be allowed to return to their homes, the Israeli military ‌declined ⁠to comment.

Lebanese civilians have been able to access some of the villages that fall on or beyond the Israeli-set line, but Israeli forces still prevent people from accessing most of those south of the line, a Lebanese security source said.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that homes on the border exploited ​by Hezbollah would be demolished ​and that “any structure threatening ⁠our soldiers and any road suspected of (being planted with) explosives must be immediately destroyed”.

Lebanon was dragged into the war on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire ​in support of Tehran, prompting an Israeli offensive that has killed more than ​2,100 people, ⁠including 177 children, and forced more than 1.2 million to flee, Lebanese authorities say.

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Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Irfan Nawaz Memon on Sunday dismissed as fake on Sunday a notification announcing that all public and private offices in the federal capital and Rawalpindi would remain closed from April 20 until further notice.

In a social media post on X, Memon said, “Citizens are requested to refrain from sharing unverified or fake news. Please rely only on official handles of the district administration, Islamabad, for authentic updates.”

The statement comes as several other measures have been taken ahead of a possible second round of talks in Islamabad.

Islamabad’s Red Zone was closed for traffic as the capital braced to welcome foreign delegations, police said on Sunday, with alternate traffic plans issued to facilitate citizens.

Public and heavy transport are also suspended in Islamabad until further orders.

The Rawalpindi district administration also suspended all public and goods transport from Sunday noon till the next directives.

Advance teams have also started arriving in Islamabad, sources told Dawn.

More to follow

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• Hezbollah denies allegation, calls for ‘caution in making judgements’
• Macron urges Beirut to ‘guarantee security’ of UNIFIL peacekeepers

PARIS / BEIRUT: A French soldier was killed and three others wounded in an attack on Saturday on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon that appeared to have been carried out by Hezbollah, French President Emmanuel Macron said, an accusation the group has denied.

“Everything points to Hezbollah being responsible for this attack,” Macron said on X, urging Lebanese authorities to arrest the perpetrators.

Macron urged Lebanon’s leaders to “guarantee the security of UNIFIL soldiers” in calls with the country’s president and prime minister, the Elysee presidential palace in Paris said.

Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire on Thursday in order to negotiate an end to six weeks of war between Israel and the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

The fighting in Lebanon, one of the fronts in the Middle East war, has seen the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) deployed there repeatedly targe-ted, by both Israeli and Hezbollah forces.

‘Caught in ambush’

The peacekeeper killed, identified as staff sergeant Florian Montorio, was caught in an “ambush” as his unit headed to a UNIFIL outpost and he died from a “direct gunshot”, France’s armed forces minister Catherine Vautrin said on X.

She said the outpost they had been heading to had been “cut off for several days by combat in the area”. The ambush was carried out “by an armed group at very close range”, she said.

Vautrin added that Montorio was “picked up by his comrades under fire” but they were unable to resuscitate him.

Hezbollah refutes claim

Hezbollah denied it was involved in the deadly attack on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah denies any connection to the incident that occurred with UNIFIL forces in the Ghandouriyeh-Bint Jbeil area, and calls for caution in making judgements and assigning responsibilities regarding the incident pending the Lebanese army’s investigations to determine the full circumstances of the incident,” the group said in a statement.

Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, condemned the attack and pledged to bring those responsible to justice.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2026

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Rawalpindi police on Saturday denied reports regarding the closure of markets across the city until further notice, terming them baseless.

A statement posted on the social media platform X quoted City Police Officer (CPO) Syed Khalid Mahmood Hamdani as saying that no directives had been issued by Rawalpindi police regarding the closure of markets.

He said that all markets and businesses were open as usual till 8pm as per the government’s policy.

He added that effective security arrangements were being ensured in view of the “movement of foreign delegations”. He said police teams were actively conducting search, sweep, and combing operations in different parts of the city to maintain law and order.

He said police were working day and night to ensure foolproof security at all times.

Separately, Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner Hassan Waqar Cheema also shared visuals regarding reports of hotels and markets being closed until further notice.

“This news is fake and not issued by the district administration. The public is advised not to pay attention to fake news. The district administration Rawalpindi will provide timely and authentic updates,” he said.

The development comes as strict security arrangements are being made in Islamabad and Rawalpindi amid an expected second round of talks between the United States and Iran amid the war in the Middle East.

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Five people were killed in Kyiv on Saturday after a gunman opened fire and took hostages at a supermarket in the Ukrainian capital before being killed during an arrest attempt, officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that at least 10 people were hospitalised with wounds and trauma after the shooting, which took place in a residential district in the city’s south.

Footage posted by the UNIAN news agency, which AFP was unable to immediately verify, showed a man carrying a gun and shooting at a person from close range near a block of flats.

The suspect then entered a supermarket where gunshots were heard, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Four hostages from the supermarket “have been rescued”, Zelensky said later on social media.

“The attacker in Kyiv who opened fire on civilians has been eliminated,” Zelensky said, offering condolences to the families of the victims.

An AFP reporter saw the supermarket — which had blood stains on its shop window — cordoned off by a heavy security presence, with officers wearing bulletproof vests and crime investigators arriving at the scene.

The assailant’s motive was not immediately known.

40-minute standoff

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said the suspect was a 58-year-old man born in Moscow and that, according to initial reports, “he used an automatic weapon”.

An employee of the supermarket, Tetyana, told AFP that she had heard sounds “in the store, like champagne being popped or balloons bursting several times. Then the customers started shouting, ’Run!’

“There’s a spot where you can hide behind the refrigerators, and we ran there. I heard a man moaning,” she recounted, her voice trembling.

Zelensky urged “a swift investigation” into the shooting and said that all the circumstances of the incident were being established.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said the standoff between the assailant and police negotiators at the supermarket lasted around 40 minutes.

“We tried to persuade him. Realising that there was likely an injured person inside, we offered to bring in tourniquets to stop the bleeding … But he didn’t respond,” Klymenko told reporters at the scene.

“That’s why the order was given to eliminate him,” he added, saying that the gunman had killed one of the people taken hostage.

Ukraine, which has been fighting a more than four-year-long war with Russia, has seen sporadic shooting incidents but has a relatively low crime rate.

Last year, a man shot dead two people in a Kyiv suburb in a dispute over the sale of a firearm.

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• Rules govt can limit trade with India, Israel on security, foreign policy grounds
• Declares ‘right to read’ fundamental to life under Constitution; warns curbs on knowledge risk intellectual, societal decline
• Notes digital access makes book bans increasingly ineffective

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) upheld the government decision regarding the ban on imports of books from certain countries based on national security and foreign policy grounds, while simultaneously affirming that a “right to read” is a fundamental right essential for life.

In a landmark decision, the court drew a careful line between a citizen’s fundamental right and the government’s broad authority over foreign trade and national security.

While the ruling strongly affirmed access to knowledge as a core constitutional liberty, it stopped short of striking down the government’s trade ban, preserving its power to block commerce with nations like India and Israel.

Headed by Justice Aamir Farooq, the three-judge bench, which also included Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Rozi Khan Barrech, set aside a Lahore High Court’s (LHC) specific directives to the government but upheld the substance of the import ban.

The FCC verdict, on an appeal filed by the commerce ministry against the January 2024 ruling of the LHC, was reserved on Jan 21.

Justice Farooq, in the judgment he authored, argued that the right to read was integral to a meaningful existence.

“This right bears an intrinsic nexus with life itself, remains anchored in our constitutional principles and is necessary for the preservation of our societal values,” he wrote.

“The right to read was embedded in our Constitution and for the meaningful fulfilment of the right to life under Article 9, it was essential that individuals were enabled to read and get educated.”

The controversy stemmed from Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs Nos. 927 and 928(I)/2019), through which the federal government banned all imports from and exports to India and Israel, including law books and journals.

These SROs were challenged before the LHC, with petitioners arguing the ban was unlawful, or “ultra vires,” as it pertained to the import of books.

While the FCC overturned the specific directions issued by the LHC — which had instructed the federal government to appoint an officer to review the policy — the FCC explained that the government had acted within its executive authority.

Justice Farooq observed that the judiciary must respect the separation of powers, particularly in sensitive areas.

“Over the years, the courts have avoided interfering in matters pertaining to national security and foreign policy.

It is the exclusive prerogative of the government to determine with which countries it will establish trade relations,” he noted.

“If FCC is to direct that trade be conducted with one country and not another, it would breach the bounds of judicial authority and encroach upon the domain of the executive, in violation of Article 90 of the Constitution.”

Despite upholding the ban, the judgment extensively detailed the profound importance of access to knowledge.

Justice Farooq stated that restricting access to legal knowledge has consequences, suggesting that an uninformed society is vulnerable and easily misled.

He further emphasised that as law evolves, hindering access to legal texts or books threatens human intellect and national progress.

Justice Farooq linked the right to Pakistan’s constitutional and religious roots, highlighting the 1956 Constitution’s stress on education and the Quranic term “Iqra,” meaning “read”.

He stated that Islam, a religion of knowledge, encourages wisdom, which cannot be gained without reading.

In an additional note, Justice Najafi highlighted the practical challenges of banning books in the digital age, noting its limited effectiveness. He mentioned that professional knowledge is readily accessible online, often for free or nominal fees, making it difficult to justify a ban on law books that can easily be bypassed.

Justice Najafi also cautioned against the broad use of national security as a justification for restricting access to information.

“Certainly, patriotism and national security are the concepts of highest legal and moral grounds which can easily be used to prohibit anything into our country, but it should be applied with due care and caution so as to prepare a strong and intellectually competent nation to face the modern challenges,” he observed.

He concluded that knowledge fortifies society by challenging old ideas and reinforcing beliefs through critical analysis. “Knowledge frees minds that may be trapped by outdated ideas,” Justice Najafi said.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2026

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Myanmar has reduced the sentence of imprisoned ex-leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her lawyer told Reuters on Friday, as part of an amnesty by a new president who ousted her government in a coup five years ago.

Suu Kyi, 80, was serving a 27-year sentence for a litany of charges her allies said were politically motivated to keep her at bay, ranging from incitement and corruption to election fraud and violating a state secrets law.

The sentence has been cut by one-sixth, but it remains unclear whether the Nobel Peace Prize winner will be allowed to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest, the lawyer said.

Suu Kyi, who had dismissed the charges against her as “absurd”, has not been seen in public since the end of her marathon trials, and her whereabouts have been unknown.

Earlier, state media reported that President Min Aung Hlaing approved an amnesty for 4,335 prisoners, the third such move in the past six months. Amnesties typically take place in Myanmar each year to mark Independence Day in January and the New Year in April.

Among the prisoners freed was Suu Kyi ally Win Myint, who served as president from 2018 until the 2021 military coup. State broadcaster MRTV said he was “granted a pardon and the reduction of his remaining sentences under specified conditions.”

A spokesperson for the military-backed government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The United Nations said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “takes note” of the moves, while underscoring “the need for meaningful efforts to ensure the swift release of all those arbitrarily detained, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and to create conditions conducive to a credible political process”.

“A viable political solution must be founded on an immediate cessation of violence and a genuine commitment to inclusive dialogue. This requires an environment that allows the people of Myanmar to freely and peacefully exercise their political rights,” Guterres’ spokesperson said in response to media queries.

The 2021 coup against Win Myint and Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government was led by Min Aung Hlaing. It plunged the Southeast Asian country into a nationwide civil war that continues to rage.

Min Aung Hlaing was elected president on April 3 following polls in December and January during which the opposition was stifled and largely absent. Critics and Western governments dismissed the vote as a sham designed to entrench military rule behind a democratic facade.

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