A proposed cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is raising hopes that eight months of fighting could soon come to an end. Displaced Palestinians are desperate to return home and rebuild, while Israelis yearn for dozens of captives taken by Hamas to be freed.

The U.S.-backed proposal is the latest serious attempt to wind down the war in Gaza, and while it still faces significant hurdles, negotiations meant to bring it to fruition are ongoing.

U.S. President Joe Biden said he doesn’t expect to seal a Gaza cease-fire deal in the near future, as an American-backed proposal with global support has not been fully embraced by Israel or Hamas.

Biden said Thursday that international leaders had discussed the cease-fire at the Group of Seven summit in Italy, but when asked by reporters if a truce deal wound be reached soon, Biden replied simply, “No,” adding, “I haven’t lost hope.”

A suspected attack Thursday by Yemen's Houthi rebels saw a missile strike a ship in the Gulf of Aden, authorities said, the latest such assault in their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war.

The attack happened in the Gulf of Aden off Yemen, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said, without elaborating.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday pushed back against assertions that Israel isn't fully committed to the cease-fire proposal with Hamas that President Joe Biden outlined in late May at the White House.

"Israel has supplied this proposal. It has been sitting on the table for some time. Israel has not contradicted or walked that back," Sullivan said Thursday in Italy, where Biden was set to attend the annual Group of Seven leaders' summit. "To this day they stand behind the proposal."

The latest proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza has the support of the United States and most of the international community, but Hamas has not fully embraced it, and neither, it seems, has Israel.

Hamas this week accepted the broad outline but requested "amendments." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly disputed aspects of the plan, raising questions about Israel's commitment to what the U.S. says is an Israeli proposal.

Muslim pilgrims have been streaming into Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca ahead of the start of the Hajj later this week, as the annual pilgrimage returns to its monumental scale.

Saudi officials say more than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims have arrived in the country by Tuesday, the vast majority by air, from across the world. More are expected, and hundreds of thousands of Saudis and others living in Saudi Arabia will also join them when the pilgrimage officially begins on Friday.

Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched a boat-borne bomb attack against a commercial ship in the Red Sea, authorities said, the latest escalation despite a U.S.-led campaign trying to protect the vital waterway.

The use of a boat loaded with explosives raised the specter of 2000's USS Cole attack, a suicide assault by al-Qaida on the warship when it was at port in Aden, killing 17 on board. Associated Press journalists saw the Cole in the Red Sea on Wednesday, now taking part in the U.S. campaign while visiting one of her sister ships, the USS Laboon.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed Wednesday to keep pressing to seal a Gaza ceasefire deal, saying that not all Hamas demands were acceptable but voicing hope that gaps could be closed.

Consulting with key mediator Qatar on the Hamas response to President Joe Biden's plan, Blinken said Hamas could have given a "clear and simple yes" but voiced guarded hope for moving forward.

At least 41 people died when a fire swept through a building that housed workers in Kuwait early Wednesday, and officials said the blaze appeared to be linked to code violations.

Interior Minister Sheikh Fahad Al-Yousuf Al-Sabah confirmed the toll and ordered the arrest of the building's owner during a visit to the site, local media reported.

A U.N. investigation concluded on Wednesday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza, including that of "extermination", while saying Israeli and Palestinian armed groups have both committed war crimes.

The independent Commission of Inquiry's report is the United Nations' first in-depth investigation into the events of the war that erupted on October 7.