The Israeli military said eight soldiers were killed in Gaza Saturday when their armored vehicle was struck by a bomb, in one of the deadliest blows for the Israeli army since the war began in October.

Captain Wassem Mahmud, 23, and seven other soldiers "fell during operational activity in southern Gaza," the military said in a statement.

Senior Israeli officials said that comments by the defense minister, who rejected a French initiative to contain tensions on the Lebanese border over "hostile policies against Israel," do not reflect the government's position.

The crew of a ship that was holed in an attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels has been evacuated and the vessel is drifting in the Red Sea, a security agency said on Friday.

Israeli forces struck Gaza and battled Hamas militants on Friday as truce efforts failed to make progress.

Witnesses reported strikes on the southern city of Rafah and central areas of the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. Navy prepared for decades to potentially fight the Soviet Union, then later Russia and China, on the world's waterways. But instead of a global power, the Navy finds itself locked in combat with a shadowy, Iran-backed rebel group based in Yemen.

The U.S.-led campaign against the Houthi rebels, overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, has turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II, its leaders and experts told The Associated Press.

The U.S.-built pier to bring food to Gaza is facing one of its most serious challenges yet — its humanitarian partner is deciding if it can safely and ethically keep delivering supplies arriving by the U.S. sea route to starving Palestinians.

The United Nations, the player with the widest reach delivering aid within Gaza, has paused its work with the pier after a June 8 operation by Israeli security forces that rescued four Israeli hostages and killed more than 270 Palestinians.

A Colombian military hospital would provide medical treatment to children injured in the Israel-Hamas war under a plan announced by the country's Foreign Ministry.

Colombia's Deputy Minister of Multilateral Affairs Elizabeth Taylor Jay told reporters Thursday the children would travel with their families to Colombia for rehabilitation. She did not provide further details, including the number of children who would receive treatment, when they would arrive in Colombia or how long they would remain in the country.

A proposed cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is raising hopes that eight months of fighting could soon come to an end. Displaced Palestinians are desperate to return home and rebuild, while Israelis yearn for dozens of captives taken by Hamas to be freed.

The U.S.-backed proposal is the latest serious attempt to wind down the war in Gaza, and while it still faces significant hurdles, negotiations meant to bring it to fruition are ongoing.

U.S. President Joe Biden said he doesn’t expect to seal a Gaza cease-fire deal in the near future, as an American-backed proposal with global support has not been fully embraced by Israel or Hamas.

Biden said Thursday that international leaders had discussed the cease-fire at the Group of Seven summit in Italy, but when asked by reporters if a truce deal wound be reached soon, Biden replied simply, “No,” adding, “I haven’t lost hope.”

A suspected attack Thursday by Yemen's Houthi rebels saw a missile strike a ship in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said, the latest such assault in their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war.

The attack happened in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said, without elaborating.