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Gaza war enters seventh month as truce negotiators expected in Cairo

The war between Israel and Hamas entered its seventh month on Sunday as U.S. and other negotiators were expected to join the protagonists in Cairo in a renewed push for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Egypt's Al-Qahera News said CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani would join Egyptian mediators for Sunday's indirect talks between the Israeli and Hamas delegations.

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Negotiators expected in Cairo as Israel-Hamas war nears six-month mark

American and Israeli negotiators were expected in Cairo over the weekend for a renewed push to reach a ceasefire-hostage deal in a war that has raged for nearly half a year.

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CIA chief heading to Cairo for hostage talks

CIA Director Bill Burns will travel to the Egyptian capital Cairo this weekend for talks on freeing hostages held in Gaza, U.S. media said Friday.

Burns will meet Mossad chief David Bernea as well as officials from Egypt and Qatar, The New York Times reported. Axios identified those officials as Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.

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UN chief 'deeply troubled' by reports Israel using AI to identify Gaza targets

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed serious concern over reports that Israel was using artificial intelligence to identify targets in Gaza.

Guterres said that he was "deeply troubled by reports that the Israeli military's bombing campaign includes Artificial Intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets, particularly in densely populated residential areas, resulting in a high level of civilian casualties."

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Kuwait opposition keeps parliament majority after vote

Opposition lawmakers maintained a majority in Kuwait's parliament, results showed Friday, after the Gulf state's third parliamentary vote in as many years held just months into the new emir's reign.

Opposition candidates won 29 seats in the 50-member assembly, according to results carried by the official KUNA news agency, matching the outcome of last year's election.

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Senior UK jurists join calls to stop arms sales to Israel

More than 600 British jurists, including three retired judges from the U.K. Supreme Court, are calling on the government to suspend arms sales to Israel, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after the deaths of three U.K. aid workers in an Israeli strike.

Britain is just one of a number of Israel's longstanding allies whose governments are under growing pressure to halt weapons exports because of the toll of the six-month-old war in Gaza.

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Trump says Israel 'losing PR war' in Gaza

Former President Donald Trump offered a tough message to Israel over its war against Hamas on Thursday, urging the country to: "Get it over with."

In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said that Israel is "absolutely losing the PR war" and called for a swift resolution to the bloodshed.

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Diplomatic crisis erupts between Poland and Israel after aid worker killing

A new diplomatic crisis between Poland and Israel has erupted following the death of a Polish aid worker in Gaza, with the Polish president on Thursday denouncing a comment by the Israeli ambassador as "outrageous" and the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw saying it was summoning him for a meeting.

A 35-year-old Polish man was among seven people who were killed while delivering food to besieged Palestinians with the charity World Central Kitchen. Israel has called the incident a "mistake" that followed a misidentification. The charity said its vehicles were clearly marked.

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UN human rights body calls for halt to weapons shipments to Israel

The U.N.'s top human rights body called on countries to stop selling or shipping weapons to Israel in a resolution passed Friday that aims to help prevent rights violations against Palestinians amid Israel's blistering military campaign in Gaza.

The 47-member-country Human Rights Council voted 28-6 in favor of the resolution, with 13 abstentions.

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Blinken says Israeli offers to increase aid to Gaza welcome but not sufficient

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that the measures the Israeli government has announced to expand the flow of aid into Gaza are welcome but may not be enough to meet the Biden administration's demands for dramatic improvements in humanitarian conditions in the territory.

Blinken said that opening more border crossings, if fully implemented, has the potential to surge assistance to Palestinians caught in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. However, the U.S. also wants to see tangible steps to bolster the protection of civilians and aid workers, he said.

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