Talks for a truce in Gaza have not yet "broken down," the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, after a Hamas delegation voiced dissatisfaction with Israel's positions and left Cairo.

"The differences are being narrowed. It's not yet an agreement. Everyone's looking towards Ramadan, which is coming close. I can't tell you that it will be successful, but it is not yet the case that it is broken down," Jack Lew said at a conference in Tel Aviv.

U.S. President Joe Biden Biden said overnight that the U.S. military will help establish a temporary pier on the coast of Gaza as a way to boost the delivery of aid for Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory by the Israel-Hamas war.

He unveiled the plan during his State of the Union address to Congress. The move comes after Biden last week approved the U.S. military airdropping aid into Gaza.

The first fatal attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels on shipping threatens to further sever a crucial maritime artery for global trade and carries with it risks beyond those just at sea.

Already, the White House is warning that there will be a response to Wednesday's attack on the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned bulk carrier True Confidence in the Gulf of Aden. What that will look like remains unclear, but the U.S. has already launched round after round of airstrikes targeting the Houthis, a rebel group that has held Yemen's capital since 2014, and more are likely on the way.

Saudi Arabia's crown prince transferred another 8% of shares in the kingdom's oil giant Saudi Aramco to the country's prominent sovereign wealth fund on Thursday. The shares are worth some $160 billion.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's decision comes as the kingdom is trying to build a series of megaprojects and invest in sports and other fields aggressively abroad to wean the country off of relying solely on oil.

Hamas said Thursday that its delegation has left Cairo and that talks on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release will resume next week, making it extremely unlikely that mediators will broker a deal before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Egyptian officials had earlier said the negotiations reached an impasse over Hamas' demand for a phased process culminating in an end to the war. But they did not rule out a deal before Ramadan, which is expected to begin on Sunday and has emerged as an informal deadline.

Israel's war cabinet, seen as a symbol of national unity in the war against Hamas, has been shaken by political rivalry between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist Benny Gantz, analysts say.

A former military chief and ex-defense minister, Gantz visited Washington Monday before heading to London on Wednesday for high-level talks in a trip which was not authorized by Netanyahu.

Efforts to get desperately needed humanitarian aid to war-wracked northern Gaza have gained momentum with the European Union increasing pressure for the creation of a sea route from Cyprus to Gaza and British Foreign Minister David Cameron saying that Israel's allies were losing patience.

While aid groups say all of Gaza is mired in a humanitarian crisis, the situation in the largely isolated north stands out. Many of the estimated 300,000 people still living there have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive. The U.N. says that one in six children younger than 2 in the north suffers from acute malnutrition.

A missile attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday killed three of its crew members and forced survivors to abandon the vessel, the U.S. military said. It was the first fatal strike in a campaign of assaults by the Iranian-backed group over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack on the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned bulk carrier True Confidence further escalates the conflict on a crucial maritime route linking Asia and the Middle East to Europe that has disrupted global shipping. The Houthis have launched attacks since November, and the U.S. began an airstrike campaign in January that so far hasn't halted their attacks.

A Cypriot government spokesman said Wednesday that European Union Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen will visit Cyprus to inspect installations at the port of Larnaca, from where it’s hoped ships loaded with humanitarian aid will soon depart for Gaza.

Spokesman Constantinos Letymbiotis told reporters that that Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides will join Von der Leyen on her inspection of the port on Friday.

Canada will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, a government official tells The Associated Press, weeks after the agency lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support following Israeli allegations against some of its staffers in Gaza.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation first reported that Canada will restore funding and that International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen would announce the decision Wednesday. But the government official told the AP the announcement has been delayed, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to comment on the matter.