Leo XIV's trip this week to Turkey and Lebanon, his first abroad as pope, is viewed as a sign of hope in a region struggling with violence and division.

Lebanon is ready to negotiate an end to Israeli strikes and seek Israeli withdrawal from five border points occupied since last year, President Joseph Aoun said Friday.

An Israeli strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon killed 13 people on Tuesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

An airstrike killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh. It was the deadliest Israeli attack reported since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

Hospitals in Gaza said at least 21 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes Wednesday on both sides of the yellow line established in last month’s ceasefire. The boundary splits the enclave in two, leaving the border zone under Israeli military control while the area beyond it is meant to serve as a safe zone.

It was one of the deadliest Israeli strikes on Lebanon since a cease-fire with Hezbollah went into effect about a year ago.

The remains of a hostage returned to Israel on Tuesday were identified as those of Dror Or, Israeli officials said early on Wednesday. "The Government of Israel shares in the deep sorrow of the Or family and all the families of the fallen hostages," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.