Republicans are heading to the House Tuesday for the second time this Congress to try and elect a speaker, marking what they hope will be a unifying moment for a party that has been in turmoil for weeks.

GOP lawmakers are expected to rally their votes behind Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to be the next speaker despite reluctance from some who are wary of his hardline approach. Conservatives have been mounting an intense pressure campaign to persuade the final holdouts to support him.

The U.N. Security Council rejected a Russian resolution Monday night that condemned violence and terrorism against civilians but made no mention of Hamas, whose surprise attack reportedly killed 1,300 Israelis.

Only four countries joined Russia in voting for the resolution — China, United Arab Emirates, Mozambique and Gabon. Four countries voted against it — the United States, Britain, France and Japan. The other six countries abstained. Adoption needs a minimum of nine "yes" votes in the 15-member council.

For hours and hours, Moen Abu Aish digs through the rubble of demolished homes to find survivors of Israeli airstrikes, toiling in a vast and desperate search complicated by the shortage of critical supplies and the sheer scope of destruction across the Gaza Strip.

Even as rescue worker Abu Aish, 58, and his colleagues struggle to pry lifeless bodies from the concrete and twisted metal where residential towers once stood, the death toll keeps rising. Gaza's Health Ministry has reported that Israel's bombardment — launched after Hamas mounted an unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7 — has killed more than 2,700 Palestinians, many of them women and children.

From its first months in office, the Biden administration made a distinctive decision on its Middle East policy: It would deprioritize a half-century of high-profile efforts by past U.S. presidents, particularly Democratic ones, to broker a broad and lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Since Richard Nixon, successive U.S. administrations have tried their hands at Camp David summits, shuttle diplomacy and other big-picture tries at coaxing Israeli and Palestinian leaders into talks to settle the disputes that underlie 75 years of Middle East tensions. More than other recent presidents, Joe Biden notably has not.

Israel on Tuesday bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee to ahead of an expected invasion, killing dozens of people. Meanwhile, mediators struggled to break a deadlock over delivering aid to millions of increasingly desperate civilians in the territory, which has been besieged and under assault by Israel since a brutal attack by Hamas militants.

Flaring violence along Israel's border with Lebanon also led to concerns over a widening regional conflict that diplomats were working to prevent.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakkan Fidan, who arrived in Beirut Tuesday, told reporters after meeting with his Lebanese counterpart that the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas “might lead to greater wars.”

“We are doing all we can so that the war does not spread to Lebanon and other countries," Fidan said at a news conference in Beirut, alongside his Lebanese counterpart, Abdallah Bou Habib.

President Joe Biden will travel to Israel and on to Jordan Wednesday to meet with both Israeli and Arab leadership, as concerns increase that the raging Israel-Hamas war could expand into a larger regional conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden's travel to Israel as the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip grows more dire and as Israel prepares for a possible ground attack on the 141-square-mile (365-square-kilometer) territory to root out Hamas militants responsible for what U.S. and Israeli officials say was the most lethal assault against Jews since the Holocaust.

The U.S. worked to break a deadlock over delivering aid to millions of increasingly desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip, which has been besieged and under assault by Israel since a brutal attack by Hamas militants, as U.S. President Joe Biden prepared to head to the region.

Israeli airstrikes continued to pound Gaza early Tuesday, killing dozens of people in the besieged enclave's south, where Israel told civilians from the north to seek shelter ahead of an expected ground offensive.

Palestinians described intense bombardments early Tuesday near two towns in southern Gaza, where Israel had ordered civilians to seek refuge.

Thousands of people trying to escape Gaza are gathered in Rafah, which has the territory's only border crossing to Egypt. Mediators are pressing for an agreement to let aid in and refugees with foreign passports out. The U.S. hoped to break a deadlock with President Joe Biden set to head to Israel and Jordan on Wednesday.

Lionel Messi's involvement in a 1-0 win over Paraguay last week doesn't necessarily mean he'll be fit for Argentina's next game in World Cup qualifying against Peru.

Messi played most of the second half against Paraguay last Thursday despite struggling with muscular pains in the weeks leading up to the game.