Egypt was Sunday set to host the latest talks aiming for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as Gaza officials reported more deadly bombardment in the nearly five-month-old war.

A senior Hamas official told AFP that a delegation from the Palestinian group would discuss with mediators a proposal for a six-week truce, after a U.S. official said Israel had "more or less accepted" its terms.

Israel has essentially endorsed a framework of a proposed Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal, and it is now up to Hamas to agree to it, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday, a day before talks to reach an agreement were to resume in Egypt.

International mediators have been working for weeks to broker a deal to pause the fighting before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10. A deal would likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who aid officials worry are under threat of famine.

Nabela thought the United Nations school in Gaza City was a safe haven. Then, the Israeli army arrived.

Soldiers stormed the place, ordering men to undress and hauling women to a mosque for strip searches, she said. So began six weeks in Israeli custody that she says included repeated beatings and interrogations.

U.S. forces struck and destroyed a Houthi surface-to-air missile in Yemen after deciding it posed an "imminent threat" to American aircraft, the U.S. Central Command in the Middle East announced.

U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier this week that a cease-fire deal could be reached by Monday. But on Friday evening, he said he still held hope a deal can be struck, but possibly before Muslims around the globe begin observing the holy month of Ramadan that is expected to begin March 10.

“I’m still hoping so,” Biden said. “We’re still working real hard at it. We’re not there yet.”

The European Commission announced Friday it was clearing a 50-million-euro ($54 million) payment to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which was under review following Israeli claims its staff participated in Hamas's October 7 attack.

Commission spokesman Eric Mamer told reporters the funds would be released "early next week" after UNRWA agreed to a "series of conditions" including an EU-led audit, with a further 32 million euros to follow later.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday the wartime death toll had reached 30,228 after 193 new fatalities were recorded in the previous 24 hours.

The ministry also said 920 injuries were tallied in the same period in the besieged territory, bringing the total wounded from Israel's nearly five-month-old war against Hamas to 71,377.

Palestinian factions including rivals Hamas and Fatah said on Friday they would pursue "unity of action" in confronting Israel after representatives met at Russia-hosted talks.

The meeting in Moscow on Thursday brought together Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and other Palestinian groups for talks on the war in Gaza and an eventual post-war period.

Three dozen leaders at news organizations around the world have signed a letter expressing solidarity with journalists in Gaza, calling for their safety and freedom to report in the war zone.

The letter, released Thursday, was spearheaded by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said at least 89 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, the vast majority of them Palestinians.

An Israeli strike in Syria on Friday killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard and two other people, reports said, in the third consecutive day of Israeli attacks on Syria.

Three violent explosions shook the centre of Banias, on Syria's Mediterranean coast, during the dawn strike on a villa that sheltered "a group affiliated with Iran", said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.