G20 leaders called for "comprehensive" ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon in a joint statement at a summit in Brazil on Monday.

The leaders of the world's biggest economies called for a U.S.-proposed permanent ceasefire in Gaza in return for the release of all hostages, as well as a Lebanon ceasefire "that enables citizens to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel's late October attack on Iran damaged "a component" of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

"It has been published that a certain component of their nuclear program was hit in this attack", Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament, adding that "the program itself and its ability to operate here have not yet been thwarted."

U.S. President Joe Biden called on G20 leaders Monday to step up pressure on Hamas for a ceasefire with Israel, as he vowed to "keep pushing" for a deal in his last weeks before Donald Trump returns to the White House.

"I ask everyone here to increase their pressure on Hamas, which is currently refusing this deal," Biden said in his opening remarks to the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

A suspected attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted a commercial ship late Sunday night traveling through the southern reaches of the Red Sea, though it caused no damage nor injuries, authorities said.

The attack comes as the rebels continue their monthslong assault targeting shipping through a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel's ground offensive in Lebanon.

For more than a year, the United States has steadfastly backed Israel in its Gaza war while quietly counseling restraint. With Donald Trump's return, the nuance will vanish, although his hunger for deal-making makes him less predictable.

As winter descends on Gaza's tent cities, emergency housing made from mushrooms could keep out the cold -- just one of several sustainable, home-grown innovations put forward by Arab designers at an expo in Dubai.

The Israeli attack on Iran in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, three U.S. officials, a current Israeli official and a former Israeli official have told U.S. news portal Axios.

The strike — which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive — significantly damaged Iran's effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

Syrian state-run media said Israel struck the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus on Friday, the second such attack in as many days to hit the neighborhood home to embassies, security headquarters and United Nations offices.

"Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus," the official SANA news agency said, after reporting a deadly Israeli strike on the district a day earlier.

The U.N. Security Council’s 10 elected members have circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire” in Gaza.

The draft resolution, which was sent to the council’s five permanent members Thursday, reiterates the council’s demand “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” seized during Hamas’ surprise attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel says about 100 are still being held, though not all are believed to be alive.

A war monitor said an Israeli strike on an apartment killed four people in the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus Thursday, also reporting a similar attack on the capital's outskirts.

"Four people were killed in the Israeli strike on on apartment in Mazzeh, Damascus, with another Israeli strike hitting Qudsaya," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights, told AFP. Syrian state media said an unspecified number of victims were killed in the strikes on the apartments.