Egypt has put forward an ambitious, initial proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war with a cease-fire, a phased hostage release and the creation of a Palestinian government of experts who would administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat said Monday.

The proposal, worked out with the Gulf nation of Qatar, has been presented to Israel, Hamas, the United States and European governments but still appeared preliminary. It falls short of Israel's professed goal of outright crushing Hamas and would appear not to meet Israel's insistence on keeping military control over Gaza for an extended period after the war.

Christians in the border villages of south Lebanon prepared for a subdued Christmas under the shadow of the ongoing war in Gaza and its spillover in Lebanon.

While in Beirut restaurants were packed and hundreds flocked to Christmas markets in the days leading up to the holiday, in the border towns houses were empty and businesses shuttered. The residents have fled to stay with relatives or in rented apartments in Beirut or other areas farther from the conflict.

Fourteen Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, the Israeli military said Sunday, in some of the bloodiest days of battle since the start of the ground offensive and a sign that Hamas is still putting up a fight despite weeks of brutal war.

The mounting death toll among Israeli troops is likely to play an important factor in Israeli public support for the war, which was sparked when Hamas-led militants stormed communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, allegedly killing 1,200, according to Israeli officials, and taking 240 hostage. The war has devastated parts of the Gaza Strip, killed roughly 20,400 Palestinians and displaced nearly 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million people.

An interagency U.N. and NGO report has found that a staggering half a million people in Gaza — one quarter of the population — are starving due “woefully insufficient” quantities of food entering the territory since the outbreak of hostilities on Oct. 7.

“It is a situation where pretty much everybody in Gaza is hungry. More than 500,000 people, half a million people, are starving. That means that one in every four people is starving in Gaza as we speak,’’ said World Food Program chief economist Arif Husain.

The U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday calling for immediately speeding aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original plea for an "urgent suspension of hostilities" between Israel and Hamas.

An Israeli airstrike killed 76 members of an extended family, rescue officials said Saturday, a day after the U.N. chief warned again that nowhere is safe in Gaza and that Israel's ongoing offensive is creating "massive obstacles" to the distribution of humanitarian aid.

It's normally a moment of pure joy for the Rev. Khader Khalilia: the excitement, the giggles, the kisses, as his young daughters — in their Christmas pajamas — open their gifts. But this year, just the thought of it fills Khalilia with guilt.

"I'm struggling," said the Palestinian American pastor of Redeemer-St. John's Lutheran Church in New York. "How can I do it while the Palestinian children are suffering, have no shelter or a place to lay their heads?"

President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order giving the U.S. Treasury Department the authority to target financial institutions that facilitate Russia's efforts to bolster its defense industry.

The new sanctions authority is meant to gum up the Kremlin's push to restock the Russian military's depleted arsenal after nearly 22 months of fighting in Ukraine. Russia has already lost over 13,000 pieces of equipment, including tanks, drones and missile systems, according to a U.S. assessment.

Less than a year before a Hamas attack out of Gaza sparked a war, one of the oldest and largest sports complexes in the Palestinian territories got a much-needed overhaul: brand-new basketball, volleyball and tennis courts, a soccer field, a running track and, for the first time, accessible bathrooms. It was a $519,000 upgrade, funded by United States taxpayers.

Now, the roof of the Gaza Sports Club appears to be shredded to ribbons, its AstroTurf field crushed under the weight of massive tanks that can be seen in satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press.

India has invited French President Emmanuel Macron to be the chief guest at the country's national day celebrations next month, in what Macron's office described on Friday as a powerful gesture for the two nations' ties.

The visit for Republic Day on Jan. 26 will be Macron's third to India as president. The event marks the 74th anniversary of the adoption of India's Constitution on Jan. 26, 1950, nearly three years after it won independence from British colonial rule.