Israel–Hamas war

Hamas will respond to an Israeli truce proposal for Gaza "within a very short period", an official with the Palestinian militant group said Wednesday, stressing though that any ceasefire needs to be permanent.

Hamas is considering a plan for a 40-day ceasefire and the exchange of scores of hostages for larger numbers of Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under grave pressure over possible arrest warrants for him and other senior Israeli officials by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Israel's offensives in the Gaza war.

Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken urged Hamas to accept a truce in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to send troops into its far southern city of Rafah.

Washington has heightened pressure on all sides to reach a ceasefire — a message pushed by Blinken, who was on his seventh regional tour since the Gaza war broke out in October.

Several European member states are expected to recognise Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday at the sidelines of a World Economic Forum special meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

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.

A Hamas delegation is due to arrive Monday in Egypt, where it will respond to Israel's latest proposal for a long-sought hostage-release deal and truce in the Gaza Strip after almost seven months of war.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to mediate an agreement between Israel and Hamas for months, as the death toll in Gaza rises and calls for a deal intensify.

Hamas said it was studying on Saturday the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after a delegation from mediator Egypt reportedly arrived in Israel in a bid to jump-start stalled negotiations.

The leader of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) has used a visit to New York to express his solidarity with students at Columbia University protesting in opposition to Israel's war in Gaza.

Dimitris Koutsoubas, who is leading a KKE delegation on a ten day-long tour of Canada and the US the visit to the US and Canada until Saturday, visited the university on Friday.

A delegation from mediator Egypt is travelling to Israel on Friday, a source close to the Israeli government told AFP, in what local media said is a bid to reignite stalled hostage-release negotiations.

The United Nations has called for "a clear, transparent and credible investigation" of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-torn Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops.