Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday urged Muslim countries to cut ties with Israel ahead of an summit responding to an unprecedented Israeli strike on Hamas members in Qatar.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's vital ally voices unease over air strikes on Qatar that threaten to derail already flailing attempts to reach a Gaza ceasefire.

Leaders from Arab and Muslim countries will gather in a show of unity in Doha on Monday, a week after Israel's unprecedented strike on Hamas in Qatar prompted widespread anger.

The main Israeli group campaigning for the release of hostages held in Gaza said Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the chief obstacle to freeing the captives, shortly after he accused Hamas's leaders of prolonging the war.

"The targeted operation in Qatar proved beyond any doubt that there is one obstacle to returning the... hostages and ending the war: Prime Minister Netanyahu," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement, referring to Israel's recent strike on a meeting of Hamas members in the Gulf state.

Libya's U.N.-recognized government based in Tripoli has reached a preliminary accord with a powerful armed group to end months of tensions that have flared into occasional violence, a government adviser and local media said Saturday.

Negotiations between the government and the Radaa Force were facilitated by Turkey, according to the same sources.

Top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio began a visit to Israel on Sunday, after expressing the Trump administration's unwavering support for its ally in the war with Hamas despite a strike in Qatar that drew broad criticism of Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Qatar's prime minister Friday ahead of a visit to Israel this weekend, showing how the Trump administration is trying to balance relations between key Middle East allies days after Israel targeted Hamas leaders in a strike on Doha.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said that Damascus is negotiating with Israel to reach a security agreement that would see Israel leave areas it occupied after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad on December 8, Israel deployed troops to the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The Israeli military said Saturday that more than 250,000 people have fled Gaza City for other parts of the territory over the past few weeks, since it intensified its assault on Gaza's largest urban center.

"According to IDF (military) estimates, more than a quarter of a million residents of Gaza City have moved out of the city for their own safety," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee said on X.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez of levelling a "genocidal threat" against Israel, drawing an outraged response from Madrid on Friday.