Israel’s military said two of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza on Thursday while inspecting an unexploded Israeli drone near a military post. They were the first Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza in months.

The drone exploded as the soldiers approached it, the military said Friday. They were evacuated to a hospital, where they were pronounced dead.

With Saudi oil facilities, cities and ships off its coast coming under escalating attacks, the kingdom's top religious authority has called on soldiers to be prepared to defend the country from Iran-backed Houthis.

The strongly worded statement from Grand Mufti Sheikh Saleh al-Fawzan, who traditionally avoids weighing in on politics in a country that holds enormous influence among Muslims worldwide, is a rare message on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East from the kingdom's top religious authority.

Yemen's internationally recognized government pressed world leaders anew Thursday for help defeating the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, saying that their new perch along one of the world's busiest waterways presents an international economic risk.

The Houthis — who have controlled Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's north for over a decade — stormed down Yemen's coast this month and seized the crucial port city of Mokha and key Red Sea islands. That gives them better surveillance of ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, at the sea's southern end. About 12% of the world's trade usually passes through the waterway.

Iran has submitted a proposal to the United States to end their war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, its foreign minister told media outlets in New York.

"If certain conditions are met, the strait will be open within seven days and talks will start," Abbas Araghchi, who is in the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly, told media outlets including the New York Times and The Guardian.

As the U.S.-created Board of Peace pushes ahead with plans to rebuild Gaza, it has said there's no place for the U.N. body that for decades has provided support to displaced Palestinians. But the agency's last chief says that behind the scenes, board members and others have been more open to working with the U.N. agency for Palestinians than it seems.

Israel wants the agency known as UNRWA out of Gaza and has repeatedly accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas militants, allegations the International Court of Justice says have not been substantiated. And yet UNRWA remains the territory's largest aid provider, playing a key role in health and education.

Lashing out at his country's critics, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily dismissed allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza as "the biggest lie of the century" in a defiant speech to the U.N. General Assembly that asserted his nation's right to wage war against Iran. Scores of delegates trooped out of the hall in protest.

Netanyahu addressed the plenum after days of speeches by world leaders condemning Israel's war in Gaza and accusing him of orchestrating a genocide against the Palestinian people. At times, the Israeli leader, facing a tough race for re-election next month, became emotional and indignant as he lectured his critics, among them New York's mayor.

Turkey has agreed to gradually withdraw forces from a strategic military base in northern Iraq and hand over its control to the Iraqi government, following a meeting between the two countries' leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Iraq, meanwhile, pledged to remove armed groups that Turkey considers security threats from the region of Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, according to a joint statement issued after the meeting late Wednesday between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen's Houthis said Thursday that its forces intercepted six ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed group, thwarting attacks on the Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu.

"Escalations and violations by the terrorist Houthi militia will be dealt with firmly," said coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki in a series of posts on X.

A moderate earthquake shook southeast Turkey and parts of Syria on Thursday, sending people rushing out of buildings in panic. There were no immediate reports of any damage.

The magnitude 5.4 quake was centered in Sanliurfa province, near the border with Syria, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency.

A Hamas spokesman said the group is ready to move forward with the next steps of a peace agreement, after Trump’s Board of Peace unveiled a six-month, $2.45 billion plan for Gaza's reconstruction. The board announced the proposal in New York on Wednesday.

The Hamas spokesman, Hazem Qassem, expressed the Palestinian militant group’s “full readiness to implement the Board of Peace’s roadmap” but made no mention of any disarmament plans. Israel has said it will not allow reconstruction to move forward until Hamas disarms.