A prolonged communications blackout that severed telephone and internet connections compounded the misery Saturday in the besieged Gaza Strip, where a United Nations agency said hunger levels had spiraled in recent days.

Internet and telephone lines went down Thursday evening and were still inaccessible Saturday morning, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org, hampering aid deliveries and rescue efforts as Israel's war against Gaza's ruling militant group Hamas stretched into the 11th week.

Israeli troops have mistakenly shot three hostages to death in a battle-torn neighborhood of Gaza City, and an Israeli strike killed a Palestinian journalist in the south of the besieged territory, underscoring the ferocity of Israel's ongoing onslaught.

The deaths were announced as a U.S. envoy tried to persuade the Israelis to scale back their campaign sooner rather than later.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and one other warship to remain in the Mediterranean Sea for several more weeks to maintain a two-carrier presence near Israel as its war with Hamas grinds on, U.S. officials said.

It would be the third time the Ford's deployment has been extended, underscoring the continued concerns about volatility in the region during Israel's war in Gaza. The U.S. has two aircraft carriers in the region, a rarity in recent years.

An Israeli strike killed a Palestinian camera operator for the TV network Al-Jazeera and wounded its chief Gaza correspondent as they reported at a school in the south of the besieged territory, the network said.

Camera operator Samer Abu Daqqa and correspondent Wael Dahdouh had gone to the school in the southern city of Khan Younis after it was hit by a strike earlier in the day. While they were there, an Israeli drone hit the school with a second strike, the network said.

Lebanese lawmakers on Friday extended the army chief's mandate, averting a military power vacuum as the country faces spillover of the Israel-Hamas war without a president or a fully functioning government.

Parliament approved delaying the retirement of senior officers at the head of the military and security services for one year, Lebanon's official National News Agency said.

Shane Palacat-Nelsen's voice drops to a reverent tone as he tells the story of the snow goddess Poliahu who Native Hawaiians believe inhabits the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest point in Hawaii.

The tale, repeated in Hawaiian families over generations, speaks of a chief who yearned to court Poliahu but was stopped by her attendants guarding the sacred mountain top — the abode of the gods, cradle of creation and gateway to the divine.

The climate negotiations that just finished in Dubai hit upon the essence of compromise, finding common language that nearly 200 countries accepted, at times grudgingly.

For the first time in nearly three decades of such talks, the final agreement mentioned fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — as the cause of climate change and said the world needs to be "transitioning away" from them. But it did not use the words "phase out," sought by advocates and more than 100 countries who argued it would provide sharper direction for the world to move quickly toward renewable energies that don't produce the greenhouse gas emissions that heat the planet.

Germany's parliament on Friday approved plans to raise the country's levy on carbon dioxide emissions from fuel by more than previously planned next month, a move that is part of a deal to resolve a budget crisis.

The CO2 price will rise to 45 euros (about $49) per ton of emissions from the current 30 euros under the plan approved by lawmakers. The government had previously planned a smaller increase to 40 euros. That is expected to impact prices for gasoline, diesel, natural gas and heating oil.

Rebecca Welch will become the first female referee in the Premier League when she takes charge of the match between Fulham and Burnley on Dec. 23, the competition said Thursday.

Welch has already worked as the fourth official in the Premier League, for the match between Fulham and Manchester United on Nov. 4, and she was the first woman to referee matches in the second-tier Championship and FA Cup.

The FIFA best men's player award for 2023 will be another contest between Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland.

FIFA announced the shortlist on Thursday with the same top three in the voting as for the Ballon d'Or prize that Messi won in October.