WASHINGTON — A Christian pastor from California has been freed from China after nearly 20 years behind bars and is back home in the U.S., the State Department said Monday.

David Lin, 68, was detained after he entered China in 2006, later convicted of contract fraud and sentenced to life in prison, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and advocacy groups.

“Praise God! We got the call late last night!!! Dad is free and over Alaska now,” the pastor’s daughter, Alice Lin, said by text message Sunday to Bob Fu, a longtime supporter and the founder of China Aid, an U.S.-based advocacy group for persecuted activists in China. Fu shared with The Associated Press a screenshot of the text sent before the Lins reunited.

The Biden administration has been working on David Lin’s case and those of other wrongly detained Americans in China for years and have raised them at every meeting with senior Chinese officials.

“We welcome David Lin’s release from prison in the People’s Republic of China,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

“We’ll continue to push the release of other Americans,” he said.

Lin frequently traveled to China in the 1990s to spread the gospel, according to China Aid, which says Lin sought a license from the Chinese government to carry out Christian ministry. It’s unlikely he was granted permission, and he was detained in 2006 when assisting a church not authorized by Chinese officials, the group said. Lin was formally arrested in 2009 on suspicion of contract fraud and, after a court review, was sentenced to life in prison, China Aid said.

The charge is frequently used against leaders of churches that operate outside state-sponsored faith groups, and it is a crime that Lin denied, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a group that advocates for prisoners of China.

In China, all Christian churches must pledge loyalty to the ruling Communist Party and register with the government.

Israel-Hezbollah rift: Israel’s defense minister told a senior adviser to President Joe Biden on Monday that “military action” was “the only way” to end months of cross-border violence between Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia linked to Iran.

The defense minister, Yoav Gallant, met with the adviser, Amos Hochstein, who came to Israel in a bid to prevent Israel’s long-simmering conflict with the militia from escalating into a broader war. It was unclear what military action Gallant may be proposing.

Hezbollah and Israel’s military have been trading near-daily fire since October, when the start of the war in the Gaza Strip prompted the militia to launch rocket attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas.

The cross-border clashes have intensified in recent months, driving tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border out of their homes, and as Israel scales down its assault against Hamas in Gaza it has freed up more of its forces for a possible offensive in the north against Hezbollah.

In a statement after Monday’s meeting, Gallant said the window for reaching a diplomatic solution to the conflict was closing because Hezbollah has decided to “tie itself” to Hamas. “The only way left to return the residents of the north to their homes is via military action,” he said.

Mideast tension: Salvagers successfully towed a Greek-flagged oil tanker ablaze for weeks after attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels to a safe area without any oil spill, a European Union naval mission said Monday.

The Sounion reached waters away from Yemen as the Houthis meanwhile claimed they shot down another American-made MQ-9 Reaper drone, with video circulating online showing what appeared to be a surface-to-air missile strike and flaming wreckage strewn across the ground.

The two events show the challenges still looming for the world as it tries to mitigate a monthslong campaign by the rebels over the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. While the rebels allowed the Sounion to be moved, they continue to threaten ships moving through the Red Sea, a waterway that once saw $1 trillion in goods move through it a year.

More flooding deaths: Exceptionally heavy rainfall pounding Central Europe has prompted deadly flooding, with four new deaths reported Monday in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Romania.

The flooding has swamped parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania as a low-pressure system crossing the region has unleashed record-high rains for days, and it was expected to affect Slovakia and Hungary later in the week. So far, 16 people have been killed — seven people in Romania, five in Poland, three in the Czech Republic and one in Austria.

Iran nuclear plans: Iran’s new reformist president insisted Monday that Tehran didn’t want to enrich uranium at near-weapons grade levels but had been forced to by the U.S. withdrawal from its nuclear deal with world powers.

The comments by President Masoud Pezeshkian, in response to a question by The Associated Press at his first news conference, underlines a campaign promise he made to try to see international sanctions on the Islamic Republic lifted. But it remains unclear how much room for negotiation Pezeshkian will have — and just who will be in the White House next year.

Pezeshkian’s comments came as Iran enriches uranium up to 60% purity, which is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, but Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran had a military nuclear program up until 2003.

There have been indirect talks between Iran and the U.S. in recent years mediated by Oman and Qatar, two of Washington’s Middle East interlocutors when it comes to Iran.