Talks in Cairo towards a Gaza truce and hostage release deal have made "significant progress", Egyptian state-linked media reported Monday, more than half a year into the war started by the October 7 attack.

Israel kept up the pressure, warning that it was ready for future military operations against Hamas in Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah, the last area so far spared a ground invasion.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday said the "terrible" war between Israel and Hamas "must end", six months on from the start of the conflict.

At the start of Israel's war with Hamas in October, Donald Trump loudly presented himself as the key U.S. ally's ultimate champion.

The war between Israel and Hamas entered its seventh month on Sunday as U.S. and other negotiators were expected to join the protagonists in Cairo in a renewed push for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Egypt's Al-Qahera News said CIA Director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani would join Egyptian mediators for Sunday's indirect talks between the Israeli and Hamas delegations.

American and Israeli negotiators were expected in Cairo over the weekend for a renewed push to reach a ceasefire-hostage deal in a war that has raged for nearly half a year.

CIA Director Bill Burns will travel to the Egyptian capital Cairo this weekend for talks on freeing hostages held in Gaza, U.S. media said Friday.

Burns will meet Mossad chief David Bernea as well as officials from Egypt and Qatar, The New York Times reported. Axios identified those officials as Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt's intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed serious concern over reports that Israel was using artificial intelligence to identify targets in Gaza.

Guterres said that he was "deeply troubled by reports that the Israeli military's bombing campaign includes Artificial Intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets, particularly in densely populated residential areas, resulting in a high level of civilian casualties."

Opposition lawmakers maintained a majority in Kuwait's parliament, results showed Friday, after the Gulf state's third parliamentary vote in as many years held just months into the new emir's reign.

Opposition candidates won 29 seats in the 50-member assembly, according to results carried by the official KUNA news agency, matching the outcome of last year's election.

More than 600 British jurists, including three retired judges from the U.K. Supreme Court, are calling on the government to suspend arms sales to Israel, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after the deaths of three U.K. aid workers in an Israeli strike.

Britain is just one of a number of Israel's longstanding allies whose governments are under growing pressure to halt weapons exports because of the toll of the six-month-old war in Gaza.

Former President Donald Trump offered a tough message to Israel over its war against Hamas on Thursday, urging the country to: "Get it over with."

In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump said that Israel is "absolutely losing the PR war" and called for a swift resolution to the bloodshed.