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Israel and Hamas agree Gaza truce, Biden pledges assistance

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Israel and Hamas will cease-fire across the Gaza Strip border as of Friday, the United States said, bringing a potentially tenuous halt to the fiercest fighting in years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had voted unanimously in favour of a “mutual and unconditional” Gaza truce proposed by Egypt, but added that the hour of implementation had yet to be agreed.

Hamas and Egypt said the truce would begin at 2 a.m. (2300 GMT Thursday), after 11 days of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.

In a televised address at 2200 GMT, U.S. President Joe Biden said both sides agreed the truce would begin “in less than two hours”.

The sides traded blows again in the countdown.

Sirens warned of incoming rockets in Israeli border communities, and a Reuters reporter heard an air strike in Gaza. A man in his 50s was lightly hurt in a direct hit on an Israeli factory, medics said.

Amid growing global alarm at the bloodshed, Biden had urged Netanyahu to seek de-escalation, while Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations sought to mediate.

Extending condolences to bereaved Israelis and Palestinians, Biden said Washington would work with the United Nations “and other international stakeholders to provide rapid humanitarian assistance” for the reconstruction of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

He said aid would be coordinated with the Palestinian Authority – run by Hamas’ rival, President Mahmoud Abbas, and based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank – “in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal”.

The United States was also committed to replenishing Iron Dome interceptors that helped Israel fend off the more than 4,300 rockets fired at it from Gaza during the this month’s conflict.

Hamas said the ceasefire would be “mutual and simultaneous”.

“The Palestinian resistance will abide by this agreement as long as the Occupation (Israel) does the same,” Taher Al-Nono, media adviser to Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, told Reuters.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had ordered two security delegations into Israel and the Palestinian Territories to work towards upholding the ceasefire, Egyptian state TV reported.

In a televised speech Abu Ubaida, spokesman of the Hamas armed wing, said: “With the help of God, we were able to humiliate the enemy, its fragile entity and its savage army.”

He threatened Hamas rocket fire that would reach throughout Israel if it violated the truce or struck Gaza before the hour of implementation.

Rocket attacks by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad had resumed after an eight-hour pause earlier on Thursday, as Israel pursued shelling that it said aimed to destroy the factions’ military capabilities and deter them from future confrontations after the current conflict.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz said on Twitter that the Gaza offensive had yielded “unprecedented military gains”.

Speaking to his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin, Gantz said Israel’s defence establishment would “continue to work closely and in full cooperation with the Pentagon and the U.S. administration to stabilise the region,” Gantz’s office said.

Since the fighting began on May 10, health officials in Gaza said 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, had been killed and more than 1,900 wounded in aerial bombardments. Israel said it had killed at least 160 combatants in Gaza.

Authorities put the death toll in Israel at 12, with hundreds of people treated for injuries in rocket attacks that caused panic and sent people rushing into shelters.

The violence was triggered by Palestinian anger at what they viewed as Israeli curbs on their rights in Jerusalem, including during police confrontations with protesters at Al-Aqsa mosque.

Hamas previously demanded that any halt to the Gaza fighting be accompanied by Israeli drawdowns in Jerusalem. An Israeli official told Reuters there was no such condition in the truce.

“The only way there’ll be a Hamas-Jerusalem linkage is if they agree to us drowning them on ‘Jerusalem Beach’ in Tel Aviv,” security cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel’s top-rated Channel 12 TV earlier on Thursday.

Hamas is deemed a terrorist group in the West and by Israel, which it refuses to recognise.

The United Nations said its Middle East envoy, Tor Wennesland, was in Qatar on Thursday as part of truce efforts.

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Israel’s Netanyahu says Iran tried to kill one of his sons

It was not immediately clear which of his sons he was referring to. Netanyahu’s elder son, Yair, lives in Miami.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran had tried to kill one of his sons, but gave no details about ​when the alleged plot took place, which son was targeted or how ‌close it came to being carried out, Reuters reported.

Netanyahu’s allegation underscores the heightened tensions since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began in February, during which Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian ​leaders were killed.

Netanyahu, whose coalition is trailing in opinion polls two months ​before an October 27 general election, made the claim in a ⁠telephone interview with Israel’s Channel 14. He was responding to reports that one ​of Israel’s security agencies had refused to provide protection for a political rival ahead ​of the nationwide vote.

“As for my sons. Here, I think there is something quite unbelievable, yes. Iran targeted one of my sons. Iran tried to kill, to murder one of my sons,” ​Netanyahu told the conservative channel known for its favourable coverage of the government.

“Iran tried ​to murder one of my sons, and therefore this security protection is not a luxury,” he ‌said, ⁠without providing any further details about the alleged plot or how close it came to being carried out.

It was not immediately clear which of his sons he was referring to. Netanyahu’s elder son, Yair, lives in Miami.

Iran’s mission at the United Nations ​in New York ​did not immediately ⁠respond to a request for comment on the accusation.

Netanyahu also said he had told the Shin Bet security agency chief David ​Zini that appropriate security should be provided for any prime ministerial ​candidate.

Israeli media ⁠had reported earlier that Zini declined to provide security for Gadi Eisenkot and told the country’s election authority there was no plot to harm him, read the report.

Eisenkot’s party is projected ⁠to win ​the largest number of seats in the election, ​although Israeli governments are usually formed through coalitions among multiple parties rather than by a single party winning ​a parliamentary majority outright.

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Norway to give over $9 billion to Ukraine in 2027

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and ​leaders from across the Nordic and Baltic region ​are visiting Kyiv on Sunday in a show of ⁠support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

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Norway plans to give another 85 billion Norwegian crowns ($9.2 billion) in financial support ​to Ukraine in the 2027 fiscal year, in ‌line with the amount given in 2026, the Nordic country’s government said in a statement on Sunday.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and ​leaders from across the Nordic and Baltic region ​are visiting Kyiv on Sunday in a show of ⁠support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

Norway plans to give another 85 billion Norwegian crowns ($9.2 billion) in financial support ​to Ukraine in the 2027 fiscal year, in ‌line with the amount given in 2026, the Nordic country’s government said in a statement on Sunday.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and ​leaders from across the Nordic and Baltic region ​are visiting Kyiv on Sunday in a show of ⁠support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

Russia ​and Ukraine ⁠are both ramping up drone campaigns aiming to cripple each other’s economic infrastructure, often striking targets far beyond the frontlines ⁠of ​the war started by Moscow, as ​fighting on the battlefield grinds toward the 4-1/2-year mark.

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Israel strikes southern Syria; Damascus condemns attack

Israeli troops continue to operate in southern Syria, and ⁠Israel occupies ​territory in southwest Syria it ​seized after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

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Israel said it targeted a “terrorist” in southern Syria on Saturday in what Syria’s foreign ministry ​said was a drone strike on a ‌civilian vehicle on the outskirts of Damascus in a “blatant” violation of its territory.

The Syrian foreign ministry said the drone ​had hit a civilian car on a ​road near Beit Jinn village in the ⁠countryside west of the capital, which caused injuries ​amongst civilians.

Syrian state TV reported one person was injured.

The ​Israeli military said in a statement that it fired in southern Syria toward what it described as a terrorist, ​whose activity posed an immediate threat to its ​soldiers. It did not say how it fired.

Tensions between Israel ‌and ⁠Syria flared up this week after Israel bombed an airbase in the northwest on Tuesday, an escalation U.S. special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, called “unnecessary.”

Syria’s foreign ​ministry said ​the strike ⁠was part of a pattern of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory, and ​was a “blatant violation” of its sovereignty. ​It ⁠held Israel accountable for the consequences of such actions.

Israeli troops continue to operate in southern Syria, and ⁠Israel occupies ​territory in southwest Syria it ​seized after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

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