Israel's defense minister has approved a plan for the conquest of Gaza City and authorized the call-up of around 60,000 reservists to carry it out, his ministry confirmed on Wednesday.

Defense Minister Israel Katz's move, confirmed to AFP by a spokesperson, piled pressure on Hamas as mediators pushing for a ceasefire in the nearly two-year war in Gaza awaited an official Israeli response on their latest proposal.

A senior Israeli official on Tuesday said the government demanded the release of all remaining hostages in any future Gaza deal, a day after Hamas accepted a new truce proposal.

Kyiv said Tuesday that Russia had returned the bodies of one thousand killed Ukrainian soldiers, as part of previous agreements brokered between the two warring countries.

"Unfortunately, among those repatriated are the bodies of five Ukrainian servicemen who died in captivity," the government agency coordinating the repatriation announced on social media, adding that it would carry out tests to identify the remains delivered from eastern Ukraine and the Kursk region of Russia.

Mediator Qatar said on Tuesday that a Gaza truce proposal given the green light by militant group Hamas was "almost identical" to an earlier version that Israel had agreed to.

Hamas gave a "very positive response, and it truly was almost identical to what the Israeli side had previously agreed to", Qatar foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told reporters, without elaborating on what changes had been made to the accepted proposal.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday any peace deal on Ukraine must ensure Russia's security, speaking a day after high-level talks in Washington to resolve to conflict.

"Without respect for Russia's security interests, without full respect for the rights of Russians and Russian-speaking people who live in Ukraine, there can be no talk of any long-term agreements," Lavrov told state TV channel Rossiya 24.

President Joseph Aoun on Tuesday warned against ending the United Nations peacekeepers' mandate in the country's south, after the U.N. Security Council began debating extending their mission.

The annual mandate renewal this year comes after Lebanese authorities, under heavy U.S. pressure, have committed to disarming Hezbollah by year end, following a November ceasefire deal that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities between the Iran-backed group and Israel.

Ukraine's allies were meeting on Tuesday to discuss the outcome of fast-moving talks to end the war with Russia, after indications that Volodymyr Zelensky could sit down with Vladimir Putin for a peace summit.

Hopes of a breakthrough rose when the Ukrainian president and European leaders met US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, who said he had also spoken by phone with his Russian counterpart.

Mediators were awaiting an Israeli response Tuesday to a fresh Gaza ceasefire plan, a day after Hamas accepted the proposal and signaled its readiness for a new round of talks aimed at ending nearly two years of war.

The foes have held on-and-off indirect negotiations throughout the war resulting in two short truces and the releases of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, but they have ultimately failed to broker a lasting ceasefire.

The United Nations Security Council began to debate Monday a resolution drafted by France to extend the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon for a year with the ultimate aim to withdraw it.

Israel and the United States have reportedly opposed the renewal of the force's mandate, and it was unclear if the draft text has backing from Washington, which wields a veto on the Council.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese as a "weak politician" on Tuesday, amid an ongoing row between the two countries after Canberra declared it would recognize a Palestinian state.

"History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews," read a post on the official X account of Netanyahu's office.