Israel's defense minister said Wednesday that troops will remain in so-called security zones in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely, remarks that could further complicate talks with Hamas over a ceasefire and hostage release.

Israeli forces have taken over more than half of Gaza in a renewed campaign to pressure Hamas to release hostages after Israel ended their ceasefire last month. Israel has also refused to withdraw from some areas in Lebanon following a ceasefire with Hezbollah last year, and it seized a buffer zone in southern Syria after rebels overthrew President Bashar Assad in December.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said the country would keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering the war-battered Gaza Strip, where intense aerial and ground assaults have resumed.

Jordan's intelligence service on Tuesday announced the arrests of 16 people for allegedly planning to target national security and sow "chaos", state media reported.

France's President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that he told Israel's leader in a phone call that the suffering of Gazan civilians "must end" and that only a ceasefire in Gaza could free remaining Israeli hostages.

"The ordeal the civilian populations of Gaza are going through must end," Macron posted on X after the talk with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for "the opening of all humanitarian aid crossings" into the besieged Palestinian territory.

Syria's new president was travelling to Qatar on Tuesday for his first official visit to the Gulf state, a key backer of the new administration after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad's ouster, a minister said.

"Today we are accompanying President Ahmed al-Sharaa on his first presidential visit to the country that has stood by Syrians from day one and has never abandoned them," Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said in a statement on social network X. He accompanied the post with a photo of the Syrian and Qatari flags.

A senior Hamas official told AFP on Tuesday that the Palestinian Islamist movement will "most likely" respond to an Israeli ceasefire proposal it received through mediators within 48 hours.

"Hamas will most likely send its response to the mediators within the next 48 hours, as the movement is still conducting in-depth consultations... within its leadership framework, as well as with resistance factions, in order to formulate a unified position", the official told AFP.

A month after a wave of revenge attacks left hundreds of Alawite civilians dead, members of the Syrian religious minority are still living in fear, with dozens killed in smaller attacks since the start of April.

The Muslim minority group was seen as a privileged minority under the rule of the Alawite Assad family, but since Bashar Assad 's government fell late last year members have feared revenge from the country's Sunni majority.

An Israeli airstrike hit the northern gate of a field hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing a medic and wounding nine other people, a spokesman for the hospital said.

The strike hit the Kuwaiti Field Hospital in the Muwasi area, where hundreds of thousands have sought shelter in sprawling tent camps. The wounded were all patients and medics, and two of the patients were in critical condition after the strike, said Saber Mohammed, a hospital spokesman.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and French President Emmanuel Macron called for an "urgent" ceasefire in Gaza during a phone conversation on Monday, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

"They emphasized the urgent need for a ceasefire, the acceleration of humanitarian aid delivery, the rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land and the Palestinian Authority assuming responsibility in the Gaza Strip," the agency reported.

The European Union on Monday announced a new three-year financial support package for the Palestinians worth up to 1.6 billion euros.

"We are stepping up our support to the Palestinian people. €1.6 billion until 2027 will help stabilize the West Bank and Gaza," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X.