Negotiators were meeting in Qatar yesterday hoping to finalise details of a plan to end the offensive in Gaza, after US President Joe Biden indicated a ceasefire and hostage release deal was imminent.

Mediators yesterday gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of a deal to end the Israeli offensive in Gaza, an official briefed on the negotiations said, after a midnight “breakthrough” in talks attended by envoys of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

 The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza yesterday said that 32 people were killed in the Palestinian territory over the past 48 hours, taking the overall death toll to 46,537.

Research published in The Lancet medical journal yesterday estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of Israeli offensive was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.

The Israeli military said yesterday that its air force had struck Houthi targets in Yemen, including a power station and ports on the western coast.

US and Arab mediators have made some progress in their efforts to reach a ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but not enough to seal a deal, Palestinian sources close to the talks said yesterday.

Israeli military strikes across Gaza killed at least 27 people yesterday, Palestinian medics said, as international mediators stepped up efforts to seal a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.

The UN’s World Food Programme has accused Israel of firing on one of its aid convoys in the war-torn Gaza Strip, saying at least 16 bullets hit the clearly marked vehicles but no staff were injured.

Iran’s military has begun drills near the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant in the centre of the country, state media reported yesterday, as part of exercises planned nationwide.

Israel and Hamas have wrangled over the details of a deal to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip and return hostages home, as Palestinian officials said intensified Israeli bombardments had killed more than 100 people over the weekend.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said yesterday that 88 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll of the offensive to 45,805.

At least 59 people, including seven children of a family, were killed in Israeli air strikes across the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, said the enclave’s health ministry yesterday.

Israel's military reported that it shot down a missile and a drone launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen yesterday, the latest in a series of attacks from the country targeting Israel in recent weeks.

Israel bombed Syrian army positions south of Aleppo later on Thursday, the latest such strikes since the overthrow of longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad, a war monitor and local residents said.

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 43 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip yesterday, including 11 people in a tent encampment sheltering displaced families, medics said.

Israeli air strikes on al-Bureij refugee camp and Jabalia town in central and northern Gaza killed at least 17 Palestinians yesterday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported..The Israeli military had no immediate comment although in a post on X, its Arabic spokesperson warned r

Iran’s security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian said a new group would emerge in Syria to fight Israel following the fall of president Bashar al-Assad, state media reported.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said yesterday that hospitals in the Gaza Strip had become a "death trap", insisting that such facilities must instead be protected during conflict.

Save the Children tells AFP

The head of the World Health Organization yesterday called for an end to attacks on hospitals in Gaza after Israel struck one and raided another in the past few days.