Israel said Thursday it would establish 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalization of outposts already built without government authorization. Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip meanwhile killed at least 13 people overnight, local health officials said.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the decades-old conflict.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he had "very good feelings" about a possible Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, adding that he expected to send out a new proposal imminently.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off from striking Iran as he voiced optimism about nuclear talks his administration is holding with Tehran.

Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said in a speech that the country's post-war reconstruction had 'just begun', calling on his people to unite.

Gaza rescuers said sixteen people were killed Wednesday in Israeli strikes across the besieged Palestinian territory where Israel intensified its operations this month.

Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, the judiciary said on Wednesday.

The U.N. on Wednesday condemned a U.S.-backed aid system in Gaza after 47 people were injured during a chaotic food distribution, where the Israeli military said it did not open fire at crowds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday denied a New York Times report claiming that in the latest conversation between him and U.S. President Donald Trump, the prime minister had threatened to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

The office called the report "fake news."

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that fighter jets had carried out strikes on Houthi targets at the airport in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, a day after the group fired two projectiles at Israel.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen denounced as "abhorrent" Israel's deadly wave of strikes on civilian facilities in Gaza including a school-turned-shelter, during a call with Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday.

"The expansion of Israel's military operations in Gaza targeting civilian infrastructure, among them a school that served as a shelter for displaced Palestinian families, killing civilians, including children, is abhorrent," von der Leyen said, according to a European Commission readout of the call.