Israeli forces have retrieved from the Gaza Strip the body of Natthapong Pinta, a Thai taken hostage during Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack, officials said Saturday.

An aid ship with 12 activists on board, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, has reached the Egyptian coast and is nearing the besieged Palestinian territory, organizers said on Saturday.

The Madleen, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, left Sicily last week with a cargo of relief supplies "to break Israel's blockade on Gaza".

The issue of conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli army has become a thorn in the side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sparking threats to derail his coalition and trigger early elections if he ends a long-standing exemption.

The United Nations chief on Thursday urged world leaders and officials attending an upcoming U.N. conference on ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict "to keep the two-state solution alive."

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace but "materialize the conditions to make it happen."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has "activated" some clans of Palestinians in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas, though it was not immediately clear what role they would play.

His comments on social media were the first public acknowledgment of Israel's backing of armed Palestinian groups within Gaza, based around powerful clans or extended families.

Hamas' lead negotiator said Thursday the militant movement was ready for a new round of negotiations with a view to achieving a permanent ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

"We reaffirm that we are ready for a new, serious round of negotiations aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire agreement," lead Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said in a televised speech marking the start of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festivities.

Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Thursday that recognizing a Palestinian state at the moment would send "the wrong signal".

Speaking at a Berlin press conference with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar, he said that "negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be concluded" first, before the recognition of a Palestinian state.

A Frenchman accused of murdering his Tunisian neighbor in the south of France will appear before an anti-terrorism judge on Thursday, the national anti-terror prosecutor's office said.

Christophe B. is accused of killing Hichem Miraoui in an attack Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described as both "racist" and "anti-Muslim". Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the case, the first time a far-right racist attack has been treated as a "terrorist" offence since the unit was created in 2019.

Syrian fighter pilot Ragheed Tatari was 26 when he was arrested. Now 70, the country's longest-serving political prisoner is finally free after Bashar al-Assad's fall, seeking justice and accountability.

Tatari, arrested in 1981 and sentenced to life behind bars, was among scores of prisoners who walked free when longtime ruler Assad was overthrown on December 8 in an Islamist-led offensive.

Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab said Wednesday that authorities had seized all production facilities of illicit stimulant captagon, which became Syria's largest export under ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview with state television, Khattab said that "we were able to stop the production of this drug and seize all the materials and factories that were producing" captagon.