The Israeli government said the ceasefire was to take hold within 24 hours of meetings on Thursday to approve the deal, under which the military should withdraw from Gaza.

A top official within Hamas said Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners: 250 among those serving life sentences and 1,700 others detained since the start of the war.

The agreement, to be signed Thursday, also calls for Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners as well as prompt a surge of aid into Gaza after more than two years of war started by Hamas's unprecedented October 2023 attack on Israel. 

"On Friday morning, President Trump will visit Walter Reed Medical Center for a planned meeting and remarks with the troops. While there, President Trump will stop by for his routine yearly checkup," Leavitt said Wednesday.

The backdrop is bleak: the number of armed conflicts worldwide involving at least one state has never been as high as in 2024, since Sweden's Uppsala University started its global conflict database in 1946.

The new media landscape has implications for not only traditional journalism, but Japanese democracy.

Major General Ruphin Fortunat Dimbisoa Zafisambo is named head of government late Monday in a bid to quell anti-government unrest that has claimed 22 lives.

Myanmar has been reeling from civil war since the military seized power in a 2021 coup, prompting pro-democracy rebels to take up arms and ally with ethnic armed groups against the junta.

Indonesian religious groups and civil society organizations rallied in unity on Tuesday to show solidarity with the Palestinian struggle as the Gaza war entered its second year.

Behind closed doors and under tight security, negotiators were to speak through mediators shuttling back and forth, only weeks after Israel tried to kill Hamas's lead negotiators in a strike on Qatar.

President Emmanuel Macron tasked Lecornu, 39, with forming a government in early September after parliament toppled his predecessor over an unpopular austerity budget.

Analysts noted that while Indonesia’s formal foreign policy remains technically unchanged, public perception has shifted due to President Prabowo Subianto’s perceived softer tone toward Israel.

His resignation compounds a political crisis that has rocked France for over a year, after Macron called legislative elections in the summer of 2024 which ended in a hung parliament.

Police were called on Sunday evening to the city's Inner West, where the alleged gunman was firing from his property at random at passing cars and police.

The Global Sumud Flotilla set sail last month seeking to ferry aid to war-battered Gaza but Israel blocked the boats, detaining more than 400 people whom it began deporting on Friday.

Under pressure from Donald Trump to end the two-year-old war, Netanyahu is facing a backlash from ultra-nationalist allies whose opposition to the US president's Gaza proposal could force the Israeli leader into early elections.

Under the Pukpuk defence treaty, which is the first signed by Papua New Guinea, Australia and its northern neighbour are obliged to come to each other’s aid if attacked.

The diplomatic push follows Hamas's positive response to Donald Trump's roadmap for an end to the fighting and the release of captives in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails, with the US leader urging both sides to "move fast".

The 64-year-old, whose hero is Margaret Thatcher, said that a "mountain of work" lay ahead to restore the fortunes of her ailing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Trump's peace proposal, backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for a halt to hostilities in the nearly two-year conflict, the release of hostages within 72 hours, a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas's disarmament -- a point the Islamist group did not mention in its response.

Muhammad Husein, an Indonesian citizen participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla, is in good condition and under Jakarta’s close monitoring, the Foreign Ministry confirmed as Israel’s latest blockade of the humanitarian mission continues to spark global outrage.

The Israeli navy began intercepting the boats on Wednesday, and an Israeli official said the following day that boats with over 400 people on board had been prevented from reaching the Gaza Strip.

As night fell on Thursday, Orthodox Jewish worshippers emerged from packed synagogues in the city after a day of prayers and fasting to learn about the attack which took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch said in his first public address since the unrest started that his government was willing to "engage in dialogue".

Cameras broadcasting live feeds from the boats showed armed Israeli soldiers in helmets and night vision goggles boarding the ships, while passengers huddled in life vests with their hands up.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will elect a new head on Saturday, who will most likely become the next prime minister after Shigeru Ishiba decided to step down.

Police shot tear gas at protesters in the center of the capital Antananarivo, where some 10,000 clashed Tuesday with police, although life had mostly returned to normal in the rest of the city by later that afternoon, according to AFP journalists on the ground.