President Joseph Aoun says Lebanon must not be used as a launchpad for instability or be dragged into unnecessary wars.

Lebanon’s top security body has warned the Palestinian group Hamas against using the country’s territory for acts that could undermine national security, after rocket fire towards Israel led to counterstrikes.

The Higher Defence Council issued the warning on Friday as Lebanon faces growing United States pressure to disarm groups outside state control, following a 14-month war between Israel and the armed Lebanese group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.

Lebanese authorities are also trying to establish their authority throughout the country, particularly in the south near the border with Israel.

Israel has violated the US-brokered November 2024 truce agreement on a near-daily basis, according to Lebanese authorities, including three air attacks on the capital Beirut.

In a statement, the council headed by President Joseph Aoun said Lebanon must not be used as a launchpad for instability or be dragged into unnecessary wars.

It added that “the utmost measures and necessary procedures will be taken to put a definitive end to any act that violates Lebanese sovereignty.”

Aoun, who previously served as army commander, has pledged to bring all weapons in the country under the state’s authority, but has admitted that disarming Hezbollah, which the US has been pressuring Lebanon to do, is a “delicate” matter.

Mohammad al-Mustafa, secretary-general of the council, told reporters on Friday that while Aoun highlighted the importance of Palestinian rights, he also stressed that Lebanese stability should not be compromised.

Hamas has a longstanding presence within Lebanon, including in camps across the country that host hundreds of thousands of longtime Palestinian refugees, and where Lebanese security forces have long had only limited authority.

Along with Hezbollah, Hamas fighters in Lebanon fired rockets across the southern border into Israel in solidarity with Palestinians after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, when Israel began a huge bombardment campaign in Gaza.

Since then, Israeli air attacks have killed several Hamas commanders in Lebanon, including the group’s deputy chief in early 2024.

Israel has cited security concerns for its continued deadly raids on Lebanon, despite the ceasefire.

In a bid to address the concerns of Israel and the US, which brokered the ceasefire, the Lebanese army arrested Lebanese and Palestinian individuals accused of firing rockets towards Israel on March 22 and March 28.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, and Hezbollah has denied any involvement.

But a Lebanese security source told the AFP news agency that security forces arrested three Hamas members.

The council said legal proceedings would begin early next week against those detained over the rocket fire in March.

Control over city gives the RSF strategic advantage in its bid to take Darfur capital el-Fasher, located 400km to the west.

Fighting in the Sudanese city of al-Nahud, a strategic city in West Kordofan state acting as a gateway to the Darfur region, has killed 19 people and left 37 wounded, according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera, in the latest eruption of violence in the brutal two-year civil war.

Local sources told Al Jazeera that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which declared on Telegram that it had “liberated” al-Nahud from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on Thursday, had rampaged through neighbourhoods, looting the market, houses and cars.

Al Jazeera understands that a doctor, a journalist and a police officer were among those killed as paramilitaries overcame the city, held by the SAF since the start of the conflict that has left tens of thousands dead and uprooted more than 12 million.

Control over al-Nahud has become a priority for both the RSF and SAF as fighting between the pair intensifies in Darfur, where 542 people have been killed in the past three weeks alone, according to the United Nations on Thursday.

The RSF has been doubling down on Darfur in recent weeks after losing the national capital, Khartoum, last month, in a bid to seize regional capital el-Fasher, the last major population centre still in the army’s hands, located 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of al-Nahud.

Recent violence in el-Fasher and the nearby refugee camps of Zamzam and Abu Shouk has caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee 60km (37 miles) across the desert to the town of Tawila.

As it continues its campaign in Darfur, the paramilitary group has also been inching closer to Khartoum again, shelling the presidential palace in its second attack on the capital in less than a week.

On Saturday, the RSF bombarded the army’s General Command headquarters in Khartoum.

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, commenting on the death toll in Darfur and extrajudicial executions conducted by both sides in Khartoum state, said on Thursday that the “horror unfolding in Sudan knows no bounds”.

The conflict between SAF, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo has divided Sudan in two, with the army holding sway in the north and east, while the RSF controls most of Darfur and parts of the south.

ICRC says Israel has ‘obligation’ to meet the needs of Palestinians struggling to survive.

The humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of “total collapse”, with Palestinians facing a “daily struggle to survive” amid Israel’s war and blockade of the enclave, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The ICRC issued the warning on Friday, adding to the urgent pleas from international aid institutions for a deal that would see Israel agree to a ceasefire and the reopening of humanitarian corridors in exchange for the release of captives by Hamas.

Without an immediate resumption of aid deliveries, the Red Cross “will not have access to the food, medicines, and life-saving supplies needed to sustain many of its programmes in Gaza”, the ICRC said in a statement.

Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid which is vital for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid bombardment that has displaced the majority, devastated the enclave and killed more than 52,000.

Israel closed access for aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, two weeks before the collapse of the ceasefire that had started in January and ran for about six weeks.

The ICRC warned that if the blockade continues, its humanitarian operations in Gaza, particularly the distribution of food, “will only be able to operate for a few more weeks”.

Under international humanitarian law, it added, Israel has an “obligation to use all means available” to ensure that the needs of Palestinian civilians under its control are met.

“Civilians in Gaza are facing an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance,” Pascal Hundt, ICRC deputy chief of operations, said.

“This situation must not – and cannot – be allowed to escalate further.”

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of humanitarian catastrophe, with famine looming as the blockade continues.

On Friday, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for the Palestinian refugees (UNWRA), said the Israeli siege is collectively punishing children, women, older people and men in Gaza.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Amjad Shawwa of the Palestinian NGOs Network warned that the situation in Gaza is worsening quickly for the tens of thousands of children, and that many would likely die due to malnutrition.

On Friday, Israel continued its bombardment of the enclave. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that 22 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli air raids since dawn, with attacks on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the northwest of Gaza City.