Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on an Israeli bus in the occupied West Bank on Friday that wounded eight people, including four soldiers.

It was the latest violence to scar the territory as tensions run high 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war.

Insurgents breached Syria's second-largest city Aleppo after blowing up two car bombs on Friday and were clashing with government forces on the city's western edge, according to a Syria war monitor and fighters.

It was the first time the city has been attacked by opposition forces since 2016, when they were ousted from Aleppo's eastern neighborhoods following a grueling military campaign in which Syrian government forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.

Jihadists and their allies cut a major highway linking the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo on Thursday after launching an offensive against government forces in Syria's northwest, a war monitor said.

"Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions cut off the Damascus-Aleppo international M5 highway... in addition to controlling the junction between the M4 and M5 highways," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels will keep up their attacks on Israel, their leader said on Thursday, two days into a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"The operations from the Yemeni front to support the Palestinian people with missiles and drones towards the Israeli enemy are continuing," Abdulmalik Al-Huthi said on the rebels’ Al-Masirah TV station.

For many across the Middle East, the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire came as a relief: the first major sign of progress in the region since war began more than a year ago.

But for Palestinians in Gaza and families of hostages held in the territory, the news appeared only to inaugurate a newer, grimmer period of the conflict there. For them, it marked yet another missed opportunity to end fighting that has stretched on for nearly 14 months.

U.S. President Joe Biden will launch a renewed drive Wednesday for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, now that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a truce in Lebanon, his national security adviser said.

The truce that began before dawn Wednesday in the south Lebanon war means Iran-backed Hezbollah is no longer fighting in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. That will increase pressure on the militant Palestinian group to agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal, Jake Suillivan told MSNBC.

As a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to hold in Lebanon, fighting raged on in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 33 bodies had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll in the nearly 14-month-long war to 44,282.

Hamas said it’s ready to cooperate with any effort to bring about a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, after Israel and Hezbollah reached a truce to end months of fighting.

The deal does not address the war in Gaza. International mediators have repeatedly failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a deal that would end the brutal, 13-month-long war.

Israel's "ultimate goal" is to bring home hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday after the start of a ceasefire in Lebanon.

"We intend to make every effort to create the conditions for a new hostage exchange and bring everyone home –- this is the most important moral goal we face now, this is the ultimate goal," Katz said.

Provisions for immunity from prosecution at the International Criminal Court apply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the French foreign ministry said Wednesday.

In a statement, the ministry reaffirmed its commitment to international justice after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, but also said that the Israeli leader was covered by immunity rules that apply to states which are not a party to the ICC. Israeli is not an ICC member.