Egypt

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has cautioned that failing to heed the lessons from the ongoing tragedy in the Gaza Strip could lead to further conflict in the Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli army on Monday ordered tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza's southern city of Rafah to start evacuating from the area, signaling that a long-promised ground invasion there could be imminent.

Talks to reach a Gaza truce were expected to resume Sunday after officials from the Hamas Islamist organisation and Israel publicly disagreed over demands to end their seven-month war.

While mediation took place in Egypt, the head of the U.N.'s World Food Programme said "there is famine" in northern Gaza, and appealed for a ceasefire.

Hamas says it is considering in a "positive spirit" a Gaza truce deal, while the U.N. warned rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory would require efforts not seen since World War II.

The reasons why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's planned visit to Washington was called off lie in the distant, but also the recent past.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the Israeli military will launch a ground offensive in Rafah "with or without" a truce with Hamas in Gaza.

Efforts persist to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with the latter considering a proposed 40-day truce from Israel. The proposal entails the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for the ceasefire, prompting Hamas to deliberate over its response. US President Joe Biden has engaged in discussions with leaders from Qatar and Egypt to facilitate peace talks.

Hamas was studying Tuesday Israel's offer of a 40-day truce in the war in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of scores of hostages held since the Oct. 7 attacks.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Fidan and Blinken met on the margins of the meeting of the Contact Group on Gaza, the ministry posted on social media platform X.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday renewed U.S. opposition to an Israeli offensive on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah ahead of his trip to Israel.

"We have not yet seen a plan that gives us confidence that civilians can be effectively protected," Blinken told a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh.