The fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has aggravated already tense relations between Turkey and Israel, with their conflicting interests in Syria pushing the relationship toward a possible collision course.

Turkey, which long backed groups opposed to Assad, has emerged as a key player in Syria and is advocating for a stable and united Syria, in which a central government maintains authority over the whole country.

Hamas said Saturday it would only release an American-Israeli and the bodies of four other hostages if Israel implements the existing ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, calling it an "exceptional deal" aimed at getting the truce back on track.

A senior Hamas official said long-delayed talks over the ceasefire's second phase would need to begin the day of the release and last no longer than 50 days. Israel would also need to stop barring the entry of humanitarian aid and withdraw from a strategic corridor along Gaza's border with Egypt.

Dozens of clerics and others from Syria's minority Druze community crossed into the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights Friday for the first time in decades.

The nearly 100 Syrian Druze crossed the heavily-fortified border area in three buses, escorted by members of the Israeli military. They are expected to visit a religious shrine on the Israeli side of the border.

Hamas said on Friday it has accepted a proposal from mediators to release one living American-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four dual-nationals who had died in captivity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office cast doubt on the offer, accusing Hamas of trying to manipulate talks underway in Qatar on the next stage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

The militant group in the Gaza Strip did not immediately specify when the release of soldier Edan Alexander and the four bodies would occur — or what it expected to get in return.

Turkey's top diplomat, defense minister and intelligence chief paid a sudden visit to Damascus on Thursday, days after Syria's interim government reached a deal to integrate a U.S backed Kurdish-led armed group into the country's army.

The agreement to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, into the Syrian government followed fierce clashes that erupted last week between government security forces and gunmen loyal to ousted leader Bashar Assad.

The U.S. and Israel have reached out to officials of three East African governments to discuss using their territories as potential destinations for resettling Palestinians uprooted from the Gaza Strip under President Donald Trump's proposed postwar plan, American and Israeli officials say.

The contacts with Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland reflect the determination by the U.S. and Israel to press ahead with a plan that has been widely condemned and raised serious legal and moral issues. Because all three places are poor, and in some cases wracked by violence, the proposal also casts doubt on Trump's stated goal of resettling Gaza's Palestinians in a "beautiful area."

Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa on Thursday signed the country's constitutional declaration, which will be enforced throughout a five-year transitional period.

Sharaa said he hoped the constitutional declaration would mark the start of "a new history for Syria, where we replace oppression with justice", as he signed the document setting out the transitional period.

Israel says it has sent 10,000 packages of food aid to Syria’s Druze, as it seeks to forge ties with the minority to shape the country’s troubled transition from civil war.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the operation was conducted in recent weeks in coordination with local Druze leaders, with most of the aid delivered to the overwhelmingly Druze southern region of Sweida.

An Emirati diplomat earlier identified by Tehran as carrying a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump seeking to jump-start talks over Iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program met Wednesday with Iran's foreign minister in the Iranian capital.

It is unclear how Iran will react to the letter, which Trump revealed during a television interview last week. Its intended recipient, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said he's not interested in talks with a "bullying government."

Egypt, Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization welcomed on Thursday remarks from US President Donald Trump after he said "nobody's expelling any Palestinians" from the Gaza Strip.

It was not immediately clear whether Trump's remarks signaled backtracking from his proposed plan to take over the Palestinian territory, displacing its population to neighboring countries.