Wearing cumbersome visors that extend below the chin and heavy red protective suits in the scorching summer heat, Hussein Jaafar and his team of munitions disposal experts carefully search a steep hillside near Ras El Ain in southern Lebanon.

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.

Israel has been conducting near-daily strikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets as the Iranian-backed group comes under pressure to disarm amid fears of a renewed war.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.